The U.S. Department of Justice has warned Los Angeles County officials they could face federal prosecution if they count mail ballots sent to more than 20,000 voters the administration says have been identified as likely noncitizens, escalating a dispute that lands less than three weeks before California’s November 3 midterm elections.
The warning came in a letter sent Friday to Los Angeles County Assistant Counsel Peter Bollinger from Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. The letter states that noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime, and that knowingly helping it happen is also unlawful.
“The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime are significant,” McCotter wrote. “Noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime, and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful.”
McCotter’s letter also pushed back on the county’s position that ballots must be counted because California’s voter registration system relies on self-attestation of citizenship. “Your assertion that ballots must be counted simply because California’s registration system relies on self-attestation does not relieve election officials of their obligations under federal law when they are on actual notice of noncitizen voting,” he wrote.
President Trump amplified the letter on his Truth Social platform, writing that officials who count the ballots “will all go to jail for a long period of time!”
Emergency lawsuit filed Thursday
The letter followed an emergency lawsuit the Justice Department filed Thursday in federal court seeking to block California from counting the flagged ballots until citizenship status could be verified. In a social media post, the department said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Homeland Security Investigations had identified more than 20,000 people on California’s voter rolls as likely noncitizens.
The department said it had given California an opportunity to correct its records and had asked the state to segregate the ballots of the flagged individuals ahead of the election. The state declined. Because California automatically mails a ballot to every active registered voter, regardless of whether a ballot was requested, the department argued the flagged individuals would otherwise receive and could cast ballots.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, has said the federal government has not provided sufficient evidence to question the eligibility of those voters.
Background: an August arrest in Los Angeles
The dispute follows the late-August arrest of Darwin Jonathan Rivera Flores, a Honduran national charged with two felonies in Los Angeles for allegedly registering to vote unlawfully and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship. Federal prosecutors said Rivera Flores, 30, of Winnetka, faces deportation if convicted. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said at the time that California’s registration system makes it too easy for noncitizens to register and receive mail ballots. “Because states like California allow non-citizens to easily register to vote and receive a ballot by mail, there is no telling how many non-citizens are currently registered,” Essayli said. “It is time for California to comply with [Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon’s] request for a comprehensive audit of its voter rolls to protect the integrity of our elections.”
Dhillon sent a letter to Weber a year earlier demanding a full electronic copy of the state’s voter registration list, warning that failure to comply could lead to legal action. In a related lawsuit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters, Dhillon said that “voting by non-citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal election laws,” adding that removing noncitizens from the rolls is “critical to ensuring that the State’s voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting.”
