DOJ Subpoenas California Officials in Noncitizen Voting Probe
The DOJ sent grand jury subpoenas to Los Angeles election officials as a judge refused its bid to set aside about 20,000 mail ballots.
The U.S. Justice Department has sent grand jury subpoenas to California election officials, CBS News reported Thursday. The move turns the Trump administration’s dispute with the state over alleged noncitizen voters into a criminal matter, days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The report came a day after a federal judge in Los Angeles refused the department’s request to set aside mail ballots from roughly 20,000 people the government says are likely not U.S. citizens.
What happened
CBS News said it had seen three of the subpoenas and that sources with direct knowledge confirmed them. All three went to officials in the office of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, the agency that runs elections in the nation’s most populous county. According to CBS, the subpoenas are dated Oct. 21 to Oct. 24.
CBS reported that the subpoenas seek three things:
- The county’s correspondence about noncitizen voting with Markwayne Mullin, the secretary of homeland security, and Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general.
- Records and communications about how the office screens for unlawful voting by noncitizens.
- Any evidence the office has gathered on noncitizen voters.
A Justice Department spokesperson told CBS the department does not comment on leaks about grand jury subpoenas. The spokesperson added that criminal investigative action was the logical next step after the court described unlawful voting as carrying criminal exposure. The department maintains that a civil remedy is still available, but said “all agree that noncitizen voting is properly addressed through criminal law.”
Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder and county clerk, said election officials were following state and federal law. He accused the department of taking a confrontational approach. “Threats and intimidation have no place in elections,” Logan said in a statement quoted by CBS, adding that his office would take the steps needed to protect its employees and keep serving voters.
The court fight over 20,000 ballots
The subpoenas come alongside a civil lawsuit the Justice Department filed Oct. 15 against California and Los Angeles County. In that case, the department asked the courts to make election officials separate mail ballots cast by people on its list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens and hold them until citizenship could be confirmed.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter turned down that request, NBC News reported. Carter wrote that it “violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections.” Al Jazeera, citing Reuters, quoted the ruling as saying that never before in American history had the federal government sought, on the eve of an election, to coerce a state in this way.
Carter also raised doubts about how accurate the government’s figures were. According to NBC News, he pointed to Nevada, where a Department of Homeland Security count of suspected noncitizen voters fell from 15,903 to 6,218 and then to 185 after manual review. Nevada officials later confirmed that all 185 were citizens. At a hearing Tuesday, the judge told the government that if it believed noncitizens were voting, it should bring criminal charges. “Go out and indict,” he told Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, NBC reported. Carter noted that the department had recently charged 28 people in California with voting crimes.
Essayli argued that California cannot count the ballots while taking no action on the voters the government has flagged. After the ruling, he said the situation remained an emergency that “disenfranchises American citizens through dilution,” according to NBC News. He said the department had filed a notice of appeal and would seek emergency relief from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lawyers for the state disputed the government’s evidence. “Where is the evidence?” Christina McCall, an attorney representing California, asked in court, according to NBC News. California has called the Justice Department’s data suspect and has warned that following the demand could disenfranchise eligible voters, Al Jazeera reported.
Background
The case has moved quickly. On Monday, a divided 9th Circuit panel dismissed an earlier emergency appeal by the department, ruling 2-1 that it lacked jurisdiction because Carter had not yet ruled, NBC Los Angeles reported. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has said that voter fraud is “exceedingly rare.” Gov. Gavin Newsom called that appellate decision “a welcome speed bump” in what he described as attacks on the Constitution.
California’s fight is part of a wider federal effort. Reuters has documented more than 100 subpoenas in at least 13 states seeking records on tens of thousands of voters, according to Al Jazeera. Most of them were issued in the past three months. Voting by noncitizens in federal elections is already illegal. Administration officials describe the effort as protecting election integrity. Critics, including state officials and voting rights groups, say the government’s lists are unreliable and risk flagging eligible citizens.
What comes next
The 9th Circuit is expected to consider the department’s new emergency appeal in the coming days, with ballot counting already underway. The grand jury investigation is separate from that appeal and may continue after the election. No California election official has been charged with wrongdoing.
