By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Less than two weeks before US midterm elections, the US Justice Department has warned election officials across California they could be targets of federal “scrutiny” if they refuse to help identify suspected noncitizens on voter rolls and set aside their mail ballots pending citizenship checks.
According to letters dated Friday, local officials were given 48 hours to help determine the citizenship status of individuals on federal government lists. The Justice Department shared with Reuters texts of six of the letters on Saturday, which were signed by Bilal Essayli, first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California.
He warned counties that continuing to process ballots from individuals on the list without verifying citizenship status risked “significant federal scrutiny and legal exposure.”
On Saturday, California’s attorney general accused the Justice Department of “politicizing and weaponizing the law” to attack President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies.
Officials who knowingly counted ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens risked becoming “aiders and abettors to a federal crime,” Essayli wrote.
Each letter includes local statistics drawn from a previously distributed list of 20,000 people who the Justice Department alleges are noncitizens registered to vote.
For those whose “citizenship status cannot be confirmed, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” Essayli wrote.
The Justice Department said it identified 1,754 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in Orange County, 1,355 in Riverside County, 1,133 in San Bernardino County, 334 in Ventura County, 180 in Santa Barbara County and 63 in San Luis Obispo County.
Another letter separately shared by Contra Costa County listed “407 likely aliens” registered.
“This letter came to us 11 days before Election Day with an unenforceable 48-hour deadline,” said Dawn Kruger, a spokesperson for Contra Costa County’s Elections Department, adding: “Our office is conducting this election in accordance with federal and state laws and that is what we will continue to do.”
Versions of the letters were sent to all 58 California counties, according to the New York Times.
In the run-up to the midterms, the Justice Department has ramped up prosecutions of people accused of illegally voting while not holding US citizenship.
The White House has also pushed federal agencies to accelerate their review of at least 47 state voter rolls obtained by the Department of Homeland Security, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.
On October 16, the Justice Department warned Los Angeles County and California election officials they could be liable as abettors of a federal crime if they count mail ballots returned by more than 20,000 people the Trump administration says are probably noncitizens.
That warning came the day after the Trump administration filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to block the state from counting mail ballots from those 20,000 people. The Justice Department on Thursday asked the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene in the case.
On Saturday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the Justice Department acted at Trump’s direction.
“It is once again the United States Department of Justice politicizing and weaponizing the law to attack its enemies, and it is completely improper,” he told MS Now.
California officials have rejected the Justice Department’s demand to set aside those ballots, saying the federal government has not provided sufficient information about how it identified the alleged noncitizens.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has accused the administration of attempting to unlawfully access protected voter data and purge voter rolls, saying such efforts undermine confidence in elections.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sergio Non, Nia Williams and David Gregorio)
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