California election officials were given 48 hours on Tuesday to review a list of alleged noncitizen voters, and the US Justice Department warned it would seek emergency relief if they did not comply. The demand, sent in letters from acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter, put California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan on notice just weeks before the November 3 election.
The department said the county had received a password-protected thumb drive with names of people federal officials believe are likely noncitizens, and the letters said those people had been sent mail-in ballots from California. McCotter said allowing noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes, while the department said ballots should be held back until citizenship is confirmed, returned ballots segregated once mailed back, and any already returned ballots not tabulated until status is determined.
The demand gives the dispute a practical deadline instead of a broad policy fight. Weber and Logan were not asked to debate the department’s view of the rolls; they were told to act within two days or face court action. That makes the next move simple and consequential: either California follows the instructions, or the Justice Department asks a judge to step in before voters cast their ballots in full.
The fight also sits inside a larger campaign by the department to pressure states over alleged voting by non-US citizens, even as has reported that multiple studies show such voting is rare and that states may have added more than 30,000 noncitizens to their voter rolls since 2000 because of software glitches and clerical errors. In July, the department sent warning letters to chief election officials in all 50 states, the Civil Rights Division has demanded nonpublic voter data from nearly all states, and the department has sued 30 states that refused to hand over their rolls, losing 26 of those cases without winning one.
That record matters because it leaves the department asking California to move quickly on an allegation it has struggled to prove broadly in court. Kiersten Pels said the department would take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law, but the unresolved question is whether the state will treat the list as a valid warning or as another overreach in a long fight over access to voter data.
