DOJ asks some California counties to set aside ballots belonging to suspected non-citizen voters

Los Angeles (AP) — Federal prosecutors sent letters to California county clerks Friday demanding that local officials cancel and audit ballots, the Justice Department said. may belong to non-citizensaccording to the Los Angeles County Registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The letters are the last escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to eliminate the vote of non-citizens before the midterm elections. Data shows that illegal voting by people who are not U.S. citizens is incredibly raredifficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and California Secretary of State’s Office in a lawsuit seeking to stop them from counting the votes of about 20,000 people who are non-citizen “likely” voters. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Trump administration has asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the lawsuit unless the district judge overseeing the case decides. They set a deadline of Saturday.

Today, according to the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office, at least 18 counties across the state have received similar letters. They have 48 hours to provide identifying information corresponding to ballots that the federal government says were sent to non-citizens illegally registered to vote. The letter requests that county officials also sequester any ballots for which citizenship cannot be verified.

“Any election official who knowingly tampers with a non-citizen’s ballot is subject to legal risk,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli.

The Justice Department is asking counties to send information about voters it suspects are noncitizens, including Social Security numbers, identity information, a copy of their registration and more.

This information can help the government and state quickly evaluate each person suspected of illegally registering to vote, the letter sent to San Bernardino County voting officials said. The letter says the government’s list of presumed non-citizen voters includes 1,133 people from Southern California’s inland county.

The California Secretary of State and the Los Angeles County Registrar opposed the federal government’s requests. In their legal filings, California lawyers say the request threatens to delay certification of the vote and undermine the legitimacy of November’s midterm elections. They also argued that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that their demands risk disenfranchising citizens.

Voting is underway in California, and more than 23 million registered voters received their ballots in the mail earlier this month. The state said in legal documents that more than 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.

Friday’s letters follow statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people on the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also accused of voting illegally and lying on naturalization documents. These charges could lead to years in prison.