Attorney General Todd Blanche said Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) may launch more California-style lawsuits to stop states from counting ballots for the midterm elections.
“We are looking at a number of states,” Blanche told reporters at a press rally in Virginia. “Whether we do something before the election, I don’t want to get too far ahead of the civil lawyers who are working on these cases.”
Blanche’s comments come amid the DOJ’s unprecedented attack on the Golden State’s election system. Last week, the DOJ sent state and Los Angeles County elections officials a thumb drive containing a list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens who the department said were illegally registered to vote. Two days later, the DOJ sued Los Angeles County and the state for refusing the government’s request to set aside those voters’ ballots until their citizenship could be confirmed.
The Trump administration has escalated the fight by asking a federal judge to block California from tabulating ballots cast by voters on the purported non-citizen list — despite eliminating names on the list from unverified sources. On Monday, federal law enforcement arrested 11 people on the list and charged 28, alleging they illegally registered to vote.
The DOJ lawsuit “borders on the absurd” and “threatens to disenfranchise thousands” of voters, California lawyers said in a response. Before U.S. District Judge David O. Carter — a Clinton appointee who had already ruled against the administration in a lawsuit demanding to see California’s unredacted voter rolls — could even rule on the DOJ’s request for a temporary restraining order, the department appealed the case Thursday evening to the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals.
When asked by a reporter on Thursday whether the DOJ would potentially block states from certifying their election results on a basis similar to its claims in California, Blanche did not rule out the possibility.
“It is not the intention of the DOJ – and it is never our intention – to inappropriately interfere with elections or the state’s confirmation or certification process,” he said. “But, you know, to say there’s no circumstance under which we would do that, of course, I’m not going to say that.”
Under the Constitution, states administer elections according to rules established by Congress. The executive branch has no role in the electoral process.
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