The US Department of Justice has sued the State of California over its voter rolls, asking a federal court to block the counting of mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 people the department describes as likely noncitizens. The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, marks a sharp escalation in federal scrutiny of state election administration less than three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.
According to the department’s filings, the Department of Homeland Security compared publicly available voter-registration files against federal immigration data to identify the registrants. The Justice Department is asking the Central District of California to bar the state from tabulating mail-in ballots cast by the flagged voters until their citizenship status can be verified, according to reports on the filing.
A flash drive and a 48-hour deadline
The court action followed days of tension between Washington and Sacramento. Earlier this week, the department delivered a password-protected thumb drive to Los Angeles County’s top election official containing the names it flagged, and gave officials 48 hours to investigate them or face legal action. County and state officials refused to open the drive, citing security and evidence-handling concerns, and California’s secretary of state has called the accusations unsupported.
Election-law experts have raised questions about the federal data and the matching methods behind it, noting that similar federal flagging exercises in other states have produced few or no confirmed noncitizens. State officials also point to practical constraints: California began mailing ballots in early October, and state law sharply limits changes to voter rolls in the weeks before an election.
What happens next
The department has framed the case as a defence of the integrity of the ballot box, while California officials describe it as federal overreach into state-run elections. The lawsuit continues a run of aggressive Justice Department action against Democratic-led institutions this year, and with the November 3 midterms three weeks away, both campaigns are sharpening their closing arguments to voters. Courts will now decide, on a fast timetable, whether any ballots may be set aside before they are counted.
