Trump administration escalates voter roll fight with threats against California election officials

The Trump administration threatened to take legal action against California election officials if they did not review a list of alleged noncitizens on Los Angeles’ voter rolls within 48 hours, according to a Tuesday letter from the Justice Department obtained by CNN.

The letter, signed by the number two official at the Justice Department, is an escalation in DOJ’s attempts to press for aggressive voter purges with ballots already mailed out in some states, after courts have repeatedly pushed back at attempts by the administration to insert itself in the running of elections. It’s the latest step in a government-wide push to find voter fraud amid President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread cheating in elections.

The Justice Department is demanding that the election officials refuse to send ballots to the alleged noncitizen voters and is requesting that election officials segregate ballots from voters on the list until their citizenship is confirmed.

Acting deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote in the letter that if Los Angeles County elections officials do not take steps to identify the alleged noncitizen voters, DOJ would “have no choice but to seek emergency relief.”

McCotter wrote that the department provided a password-protected thumb drive containing names the administration “believes are likely non-citizens” who were sent a mail ballot this year. It requests that the election officials work with the Department of Homeland Security to comply with its demands.

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Justice Department ran ‘roughshod’ over civil rights with plans to audit state voter rolls, judge says

The letter was first reported by Reuters .

Spokespeople for the California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and for the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiries about the latest administration demands.

It is not clear what legal avenue the administration could use to force California election officials to take the actions it seeks. The Constitution gives states the primary job of running elections, though it allows Congress to pass some regulations of the vote as well.

Earlier this summer, the Justice Department sent letters warning it would prosecute election officials who did not take adequate steps to remove noncitizens from voter registration files, but state officials of both parties dismissed the threat.

It’s unclear why the Justice Department sent the letter now, as election officials view the window for changing protocols as closed.

“California’s voter lists are public, and this administration has had 21 months with total control of the federal government to review those public lists,” said David Becker, a former DOJ voting section attorney who now advises election administrators.

“California sent out mail ballots to all voters on Oct 5. One must question why the DOJ would violate its own rules about investigating elections close to Election Day, and over a week after they knew the state had already mailed ballots out, particularly when their past claims have been full of errors,” Becker said.

The Justice Department defended sending the letters.

“Federal law is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. The Department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law,” said DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels.

The Trump administration has alleged there are hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls. In August, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed DHS had identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states — including California, along with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada — by comparing public voter rolls with federal immigration records.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/File

ICE reviewed tens of millions of voter records looking for noncitizen voters, records show

But those claims have come under immense scrutiny and, in some cases, failed to hold up . In Nevada, for instance, DHS acknowledged to state officials that its initial claim of 15,900 non-citizen registrants was an unvetted preliminary finding, and that it had only “confirmed” 185 of them through manual review. Last month, Nevada officials told DHS that their own subsequent review found all 185 were citizens — a conclusion DHS disputes.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has also sought unredacted state voter roll data from the states as part of its hunt for noncitizens on the rolls. The department has sued 30 states demanding the data — but lost every case where a judge has ruled so far, including in California.

Other attempts by the administration to police how states handle elections have also been shut down in court. The Supreme Court blocked a Trump directive for the US Postal Service to screen mail ballots, and a 2025 executive order from the president seeking to boost the proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration was halted in court as well.

Trump’s efforts to implement those requirements through legislation faltered in Congress this year. A recent judge’s ruling dismissing a non-citizen voter prosecution the administration brought in Florida also has raised constitutional questions about the federal law barring non-citizen voting.

The administration did secure a major legal win when the Supreme Court okayed a federal immigration data system that Trump has encouraged states to use to vet the citizenship status of their registered voters. Election officials in more than half of the states use the system voluntarily. However, even Republican election officials have balked at proposals from Justice Department that would force them to purge voters whom the administration has deemed ineligible — particularly given the accuracy concerns around the federal government’s data tools.

CNN’s Gabe Cohen contributed to this report.

据 CNN 获得的一封司法部周二的信件显示，特朗普政府威胁称，如果加州选举官员不在 48 小时内审查洛杉矶选民名册上所谓的非公民名单，将对他们采取法律行动。

这封由司法部二号人物签署的信函，标志着司法部在部分州已寄出选票的情况下，进一步施压要求对选民进行彻底清理。此前，法院曾多次驳回政府干预选举的企图。这是政府在唐纳德·特朗普总统毫无根据地声称选举中存在普遍舞弊行为之际，为寻找选民欺诈而采取的最新举措。

司法部要求选举官员拒绝向所谓的非公民选民寄送选票，并要求选举官员将名单上选民的选票分开存放，直到确认其公民身份为止。

代理副司法部长特伦特·麦科特在信中写道，如果洛杉矶县选举官员不采取措施查明所谓的非公民选民，司法部将“别无选择，只能寻求紧急救济”。

麦科特写道，该部门提供了一个受密码保护的U盘，其中包含政府“认为很可能是非公民”但今年却收到了邮寄选票的人员名单。该部门要求选举官员与国土安全部合作，以满足其要求。

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法官称，司法部计划审计各州选民名册，此举“践踏”了公民权利。

路透社率先报道了这封信的内容。

加州州务卿雪莉·韦伯和洛杉矶县登记员兼记录员迪安·洛根的发言人均未立即回应 CNN 关于政府最新要求的询问。

目前尚不清楚政府可以通过何种法律途径迫使加州选举官员采取其所寻求的行动。宪法赋予各州管理选举的主要职责，但也允许国会制定一些选举法规。

今年夏天早些时候，司法部发出信函警告，将起诉那些没有采取足够措施将非公民从选民登记文件中移除的选举官员，但两党的州官员都对这一威胁不以为然。

目前尚不清楚司法部为何此时发出这封信，因为选举官员认为改变规则的窗口期已经关闭。

“加州的选民名单是公开的，本届政府在完全掌控联邦政府的 21 个月里，一直在审查这些公开的名单，”曾任司法部投票部门律师、现任选举管理人员顾问的大卫·贝克尔说道。

“加州于10月5日向所有选民寄出了邮寄选票。人们不禁要问，司法部为何会在临近选举日，而且在他们明知该州已经寄出选票一周多之后，还违反自己关于调查选举的规定，尤其是在他们过去的说法充满了错误的情况下，”贝克尔说。

司法部为寄送这些信件辩护。

“联邦法律规定得很清楚：只有美国公民才能参加联邦选举。司法部将采取一切必要的法律行动，以维护选举的公正性，并确保遵守联邦法律，”司法部发言人基尔斯滕·佩尔斯说。

特朗普政府声称，选民名册上有数十万非公民。今年8月，国土安全部长马克韦恩·穆林声称，国土安全部通过比对公开的选民名册和联邦移民记录，在包括加利福尼亚州、宾夕法尼亚州、新泽西州和内华达州在内的四个州，发现了25万名登记投票的非公民。

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/文件

记录显示，美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）审查了数千万份选民记录，以寻找非公民选民。

但这些说法受到了严格审查，在某些情况下，这些说法站不住脚。例如，在内华达州，国土安全部向州政府官员承认，其最初声称的15900名非公民登记人员只是一个未经核实的初步调查结果，并且仅通过人工审核“确认”了其中的185人。上个月，内华达州官员告诉国土安全部，他们随后进行的审查发现这185人全部都是公民——国土安全部对这一结论提出异议。

美国司法部民权司也已向各州索取未经删减的选民登记册数据，以查找登记册上的非公民。该部门已起诉30个州要求提供这些数据，但迄今为止，所有案件均败诉，包括在加利福尼亚州的败诉。

政府试图干预各州选举的其他举措也均被法院驳回。最高法院阻止了特朗普要求美国邮政局筛查邮寄选票的指令，总统一项旨在提高选民登记公民身份证明要求的2025年行政命令也被法院叫停。

今年，特朗普试图通过立法落实这些要求的努力在国会受挫。最近，一位法官驳回了特朗普政府在佛罗里达州提起的针对非公民选民的诉讼，这也引发了关于禁止非公民投票的联邦法律的宪法问题。

特朗普政府确实取得了一项重大的法律胜利：最高法院批准了一项联邦移民数据系统，特朗普一直鼓励各州使用该系统来核实其登记选民的公民身份。超过半数的州选举官员自愿使用该系统。然而，即使是共和党选举官员也对司法部提出的强制他们清除政府认定为不符合资格的选民名单的提议表示反对——尤其是在联邦政府数据工具的准确性令人担忧的情况下。

CNN的Gabe Cohen对本报道亦有贡献。