The Justice Department on Monday charged 28 people in California with unlawful voting and other election-related crimes, days after it sued the state over a list of suspected noncitizen voters and warned local election workers about possible prosecution.1,3,4,5,6,7
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announced the charges at a press conference, saying the defendants faced “some combination of unlawful voting by an alien, a false claim of U.S. citizenship in order to vote or register to vote, and knowingly depriving the residents of California of a fair and impartial election process.” Department officials said all 28 are lawful permanent residents and that each appeared on a list of about 20,000 names the department sent to California last week. The charges were brought as part of a effort the department calls Operation Protect the Vote.1,3,6,7
The department’s accounts of how many of the defendants cast ballots differ across reports. The Federalist said the department’s press release alleged that 23 noncitizens voted in U.S. elections, while The Guardian reported that a department spokesperson said 21 of the 28 had cast unlawful ballots. Eleven defendants have been taken into custody, and the department said arrests were ongoing. An Associated Press dispatch described “more than two dozen” foreign nationals being arrested in the sweep.5,6,7,1
McCotter said the list was assembled by cross-referencing publicly available California voter rolls with “other government databases” and “other public information.” He described the next step as removing anyone with evidence of citizenship. “So we looked at State Department records, passport records, Social Security Administration, and alien files,” he said. “We looked whether someone may have gotten derivative citizenship from a parent, or maybe they were naturalized citizens. All those people [were] knocked off.” He said the remaining names were then manually verified.1
The department sued California on Thursday for failing to review the list and act on it. NPR reported that the department also filed an emergency request in federal court to stop California from processing ballots returned by people on the rolls whom the federal government described as “likely noncitizens.” The state has asked for specific information about how federal officials reached their conclusions, and NPR reported that it has not received it.1,3,7
California officials have rejected the federal request. Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, called the demands “outrageous” in a letter to the department and said federal officials had made “vague and unsubstantiated allegations” about voter fraud for months. Weber also said the Department of Homeland Security first claimed in July that more than 190,000 registered voters “may be” noncitizens before lowering that figure to 20,000. Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan said his office would not open the thumb drive the department provided, which arrived with its password on a sticky note, “because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols.” “We do not consider the device a secure medium,” Logan said in a statement. Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor, said, “This is voter intimidation and a blatant attempt to undermine trust in our midterm elections.”1,6,7
On Friday, the department sent a letter to Los Angeles County officials, with copies to Weber and Logan, warning that election officials who knowingly process ballots could face investigation. “If persons knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens, they risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime,” the letter said. McCotter later said at the press conference that he would not “prejudge or pre-announce any sort of criminal case.” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that evening: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” Logan said his office was focused on running a fair and secure election, noting that Election Day was 18 days away.7,3
Some defendants’ accounts, as described in court papers, differ from the department’s account of deliberate fraud. The Guardian reported that one defendant, who has been a permanent resident since 1976, told investigators that canvassers outside a supermarket had helped him register, and that when he said he could not vote because he was not a citizen, poll workers told him it was “OK.” He cast a blank ballot, according to an investigator’s affidavit. NPR reported that a number of the defendants do not appear to have voted and that some registered more than 20 years ago. Many are accused of false statements on naturalization applications. Essayli, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, rejected the idea that registrations happen by accident. “It’s not something that just happens to you,” he said. “They either attested to it when they got a driver’s license, or they went out of their way to file a voter registration form, and they swore under oath that they were a citizen.”6,3
Election experts have described noncitizen voting as rare. Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, said the charges appeared designed to make the issue “look like a bigger issue than it is,” adding, “Given that there’s over 20 million registered voters in California, this is quite a small number of allegations.” ABC reported that Trump and Republican leaders have described noncitizen voting as a pressing threat to free and fair elections. NPR noted that a New Jersey software glitch at the state’s motor vehicle agency this summer registered more than 6,000 people to vote despite their indicating they were noncitizens. ABC also reported that the department previously sent Nevada a list of 185 names, and Nevada officials determined that all of them were citizens.3,1
The department said it has charged 113 people in 20 states with illegal voting or illegal registration over the past seven weeks, and Essayli said it is pursuing thousands of similar cases nationally. Dana Lewis, the Republican county recorder in Pinal County, Arizona, said local officials across the country are watching the California dispute closely. “If it’s happening in Georgia, if it’s happening in Colorado or California, we’re all watching,” she said.1,3,5
The department has not said how many of the 20,000 names will ultimately be charged, and McCotter acknowledged that some on the list may be citizens. “There may be some names on there who, it turns out, ultimately are citizens. We’re not perfect, and that’s why we’ve asked California to cooperate with us,” he said. Asked about the changing estimates, he described 190,000 as “the ceiling” and 20,000 as “the floor,” saying the smaller group consisted of people the department was most confident about.6
The matter will now move through federal court, where the department’s emergency request and lawsuit are pending. Logan has said the department’s claims will need to be resolved there. “The U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to litigate their unverified assertions of voting eligibility,” he said. “At this point, it is best for this to be addressed in court.”7
