The Trump administration is escalating its fight with California ahead of next month’s midterm elections, warning that local officials who process and tabulate ballots submitted by suspected noncitizen voters are putting themselves at risk of criminal investigation and potential prosecution.
The letter on Friday from senior justice department officials and obtained first by the Associated Press is the latest salvo in an ongoing tussle with heavily Democratic California, coming just a day after the Trump administration sued the state to prevent it from counting mail-in ballots from people the federal government has identified as “likely” noncitizens until their immigration status can be confirmed.
Noncitizen voting is extremely rare and the effort to investigate noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections has only turned up a handful of cases so far. The justice department has charged about 50 people who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens out of the more than 227 million registered voters in the United States during the 2024 presidential election.
“The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime are significant. Noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime – and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful,” warns the letter from Trent McCotter, the acting deputy attorney general at the justice department.
It adds: “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 is addressed to the Los Angeles county counsel’s office and also is copied to the California secretary of state, Shirley Weber, and the Los Angeles county registrar, Dean Logan, effectively putting the entire state on notice.
Trump weighed in late Friday, sharing on Truth Social a link to a news story about the letter and adding: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”
The justice department lawsuit was filed after California officials were given, and did not meet, a 48-hour deadline to review a password-protected thumb drive that contained a list of 20,000 names. The federal government says those are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots to participate in the 3 November election, although the secretary of state said the administration has provided no evidence to support that claim. The state mails ballots to all registered voters.
Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor, said the letter “ups the ante by threatening election officials with potential criminal prosecution”.
“It is deplorable that rather than work cooperatively and assist states in their election administration responsibilities, the federal government is making escalating threats and unreasonable demands beyond its power in the middle of an ongoing election,” he said.
Justin Levitt, a former deputy assistant attorney general who teaches at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, dismissed the idea that an attempted prosecution of an election official using the letter’s rationale would hold up.
“Courts haven’t been buying what DOJ has been selling, and nothing in this letter is calibrated to change course,” he said. “Fortunately, election officials – not just in Los Angeles, but across the country – are equipped to stand up to aggressive bullying. And the law is on their side.”
More than 23 million people are registered statewide, and a handful of competitive congressional races in other California districts could determine which party controls the US House for the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidential term.
Earlier Friday, Alex Padilla, California Democratic senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democratic senator and Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democratic senator, wrote to Todd Blanche, the attorney general, demanding that the justice department commit to not seizing ballots or other election materials before the midterm elections are certified.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
