Justice Department Pushes Dubious Noncitizen Voting List as Legal Fight Escalates
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The Justice Department is defending a list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens supposedly registered to vote in California, even as an immigrant rights group says over 40% of the names cannot be matched to state voter rolls and some may actually be naturalized citizens.
The Justice Department is standing by its list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in California, even as it threatens an immigrant rights group and its attorneys with possible contempt charges for publishing an analysis of the list. That analysis, conducted by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), found that over 40% of the individuals identified do not appear in the state's voter file, and it also pointed out that some of the listed individuals are likely naturalized U.S. citizens.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg had previously allowed CHIRLA access to federal data, but ordered that the names not be disclosed and that the data be used solely to establish legal standing in their challenge against the Trump administration's claims. The Justice Department argued that the immigrant rights group's analysis was irrelevant to the plaintiffs' standing and violated the court's order, and it urged Boasberg to consider referring the matter for a potential criminal contempt investigation.
Alberto Lammers, a spokesman for the University of California, Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project, which assisted in the analysis, said the plaintiffs' counsel fully complied with the court's orders. In a related case, the Justice Department is appealing a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Trina L. Thompson that barred it from demanding the removal of potential noncitizens from voter rolls. Thompson has scheduled a hearing for Monday on the appeal.
California election officials have criticized the Justice Department's list as deeply flawed, saying they do not have the resources to verify and remove voters in the short time before the election. The administration says the list was compiled from state voter registration data compared to federal citizenship records, and it has issued subpoenas to California election offices while warning that officials who allow noncitizens to vote could face criminal charges.