ASN NEWS USA — SPECIAL REPORT
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (ASN NEWS USA)—
The Trump administration sued California election officials Thursday, asking a federal judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots from people the government has identified as “likely” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
The lawsuit followed a Justice Department demand that the state review a password-protected thumb drive — delivered with the password written on a handwritten sticky note — containing a list of 20,000 names the government says are likely noncitizens who received ballots for the November 3 midterm election. The state was given 48 hours to review the list and missed the deadline.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, the only county official named in the suit, confirmed his office received the drive Tuesday. He said he has no jurisdiction over ballots outside Los Angeles County and that his office cannot withhold or refuse to count ballots “based solely on unverified allegations.”
Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the government provided no evidence to support its claim, noting that a similar list of nearly 16,000 alleged noncitizens on Nevada’s rolls was later shown to be entirely U.S. citizens. She said the state is in “full compliance” with federal law and called the Justice Department’s demands an emergency of its own creation.
Election law expert David Becker, head of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the lawsuit “fairly frivolous,” saying the administration would have acted months earlier had its goal been a good-faith voter-roll cleanup. He warned it raises the question of whether the goal is to set the stage for false claims about the election.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said the administration’s alleged number of noncitizens on the rolls has dropped from 190,000 flagged by Homeland Security over the summer to 20,000 now — “What happened to those 170,000? They just got those wrong,” he said. Bonta added that the administration is violating the federal law barring voter-roll changes within 90 days of an election.
Voting is already underway in California, where more than 23 million people are registered. Several competitive congressional races could decide which party controls the U.S. House for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Stay tuned to ASN News USA for updates on this developing story.
Reported by ASN News USA. Visit asnnewsusa.com or follow @ASNNewsUSA for updates.
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