DOJ requires some California counties to void and verify suspected non-citizen ballots within 48 hours

Federal prosecutors sent letters to California county clerks on Friday demanding that local officials void and verify ballots that the Justice Department says may belong to non-citizens, according to the Los Angeles County registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

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

Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office. in a lawsuit aimed at to prevent them from counting the votes of more than 20,000 people who he says are “likely” non-citizen voters. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Trump administration on Friday asked the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule on the lawsuit, barring a ruling from the district judge overseeing the case. 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 were given 48 hours to provide identifying information matching 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 processes 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 a statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people on the list of 20,000 were accused of illegally registering to vote. Some were also accused of voting illegally and lying on naturalization documents. These charges could lead to years in prison.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has filed 31 lawsuits seeking to force states to turn over unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The division said it wanted to ensure states maintained clean voter rolls, but it has since acknowledged it also intends to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security so the rolls can be verified for noncitizens.

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, sent letters to all 50 states in July, threatening criminal action if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls.

So far, the Justice Department has lost 26 of these cases and has not won any legal victories to date.

“This is NOT A DRILL: Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are attempting to interfere in California’s elections,” California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said in a statement Friday. “Trump’s DOJ has provided no evidence for its claims of massive voter fraud. They have admitted that the data they cite is inaccurate and unreliable. No matter how many lawsuits they file or how many election officials they threaten, they have no authority to intervene.”