Justice Department moves to stop counting 20,000 California mail ballots amid noncitizen voting concerns
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The U.S. Justice Department sued California to prevent the state from counting mail ballots for roughly 20,000 voters it says may be non-citizens, while state officials rushed to denounce the action and defend their handling of the election process.
The Justice Department filed a complaint in the Central District of California asking a federal judge to block the state from counting mail ballots for about 20,000 voters identified by federal immigration agencies as "likely noncitizens." The suit, filed on Thursday, says the voters were sent ballots in violation of federal election law and the Supremacy Clause, reflecting a serious effort to enforce election rules that, according to the filing, California ignored.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the action, stating that "state-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable" and warning that California could undermine confidence in the electoral system if the ballots are counted. Supporters of the lawsuit argue that election integrity depends on removing questionable ballots before they are mixed into official totals, rather than waiting until after any damage is done.
California Governor Gavin Newsom responded on X, calling the lawsuit an attempt to suppress voters and asserting that courts have ruled the federal government has no role in running state elections. Attorney General Rob Bonta also wrote on X that the administration's demands are meritless and that no widespread voter fraud has been found, language that critics say does little to answer the specific issue raised by the federal government.
The complaint relies on a review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Homeland Security Investigations, which together identified the 20,000 individuals with "high confidence" as likely noncitizens. The Department of Justice gave California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan 48 hours to set aside the ballots, warning of emergency relief if they did not comply and signaling that the federal government is prepared to act quickly to protect the integrity of the count.
Weber and Logan rejected the request, noting that the list includes voters from across the state and that the Justice Department has not provided the underlying evidence or methodology. Weber described the demand as an "emergency of the DOJ’s creation" and said California will continue to follow applicable federal and state law, but that response leaves unanswered the federal claim that potentially ineligible ballots should not be counted.
The lawsuit arrives weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, which have already begun with mail-in voting. Separate litigation in Washington, D.C., brought by the UCLA Voting Rights Project seeks to block the Justice Department from intervening in California’s election process, showing how quickly the issue has become a broader legal battle over who gets to safeguard the vote.
Democratic senators, including Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, wrote to Attorney General Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, criticizing the Justice Department’s actions as an attempt to challenge ballots ahead of Election Day and urging officials to focus on conducting a safe election. The dispute now underscores a familiar split: federal officials pressing for enforcement, and state Democrats resisting scrutiny that could expose problems in the system.