Trump's DOJ Demands California Counties Set Aside Flagged Ballots in 48 Hours

Prosecutors' letters ask registrars to segregate mail ballots from voters on a federal list and warn officials of legal jeopardy.

Federal prosecutors on Friday gave California county election officials 48 hours to commit to helping identify which voters on a federal list are citizens, and asked them to set aside mail ballots from anyone whose citizenship can't be confirmed, according to letters obtained by NBC News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The clock started with the election already moving. California mailed ballots this month to more than 23 million registered voters, and the state said in court filings that it had already counted more than 330,000, the Associated Press reported.

"Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement to NBC News.

His letter to San Bernardino County came with 1,133 names of people it calls likely noncitizens and asked that the vote-by-mail ballots of anyone whose citizenship can't be confirmed be set aside — "segregate — not cancel" — until it's settled, NBC reported. The letter's verb is "ask." CNN, which also saw it, reported that it warns officials who knowingly count those ballots that they risk becoming accomplices to a federal crime.

The department also wants each flagged voter's Social Security number, ID information and a copy of the registration, ABC7 reported.

How many counties got a letter depends on who's counting. NBC reported that letters went to 57 of California's 58 counties Friday, with Los Angeles County having gotten its own the week before. The L.A. County registrar's office told the AP at least 18 counties had received one. A department spokeswoman, Kiersten Pels, told MS NOW the department had contacted every county in California.

The Chronicle confirmed four: Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Merced and Fresno. Even L.A. County Registrar Dean Logan, in an email to fellow election officials, wrote only that the letters went to some or all counties.

Every name traces back to a list of roughly 20,000 people the Department of Homeland Security calls likely noncitizens. It reached L.A. County on Oct. 13 on a USB drive with a handwritten password note, and the county wouldn't plug it in because it didn't consider the device secure, Logan said in a statement.

Once the county got a spreadsheet instead, it checked a sample of 200 names. About 70% had no voting history and 112 were tied to canceled or inactive registrations, according to county court filings described by NPR. Among records that meaningfully listed a birthplace, 38.9% said the United States.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter has allowed for mistakes. "There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens, we're not perfect," he said at a press conference Monday, NPR reported. A department spokeswoman told NPR that California had refused to check the names itself and that federal law doesn't let it look away.

Logan, a named defendant in the federal lawsuit, wrote that the new letters take a "posture of intimidation" and threaten local officials 12 days before the election, the Chronicle reported. He also wrote that only his office, not Secretary of State Shirley Weber's, ever got the 20,000-name list, though the letters say the state had it.

Elsewhere, Contra Costa's county lawyers hadn't decided Friday how to respond, though Clerk-Recorder Kristin Connelly told the Chronicle her office is following state and federal law. Fresno's registrar said he's reviewing the letter with the secretary of state and attorney general. Weber's office told the Chronicle it had nothing to share.

California's lawyers have told the court that the department's request can't be carried out this close to Election Day and would probably violate both state and federal election law, NPR reported. Attorney General Rob Bonta said Oct. 15 that the state wouldn't withhold the flagged ballots, and that the administration was violating a federal law barring changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election, the Associated Press reported.

The letters arrived days after the department charged 28 people on the list with illegally registering to vote, some of them also with voting illegally. The AP noted that voting by noncitizens is extremely rare, hard to prove and hasn't been shown to swing a race.

The department also asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to step in before the district judge rules. A three-judge panel heard that emergency request by video on Sunday, and two of the judges sounded skeptical, CNN reported. Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, said California appears to have the power under the Constitution's Elections Clause to sort out noncitizens itself. As of CNN's Sunday afternoon report, the panel hadn't ruled. The district court hearing is still set for Tuesday, a week before the Nov. 3 election.

Source: abc7.com, retrieved October 24, 2026. Other sources: NBC News, San Francisco Chronicle, CNN, Los Angeles County, opb.org, pbs.org.

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