Feds pressure California to purge noncitizens from voter rolls

(The Center Square) – Federal officials urged the California secretary of state this week to ensure that no noncitizens are registered to vote in the Nov. 3 midterm election, threatening “emergency relief” if the state does not comply.

According to a letter from U.S. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to Secretary of State Shirley Weber, state officials knew earlier this year that noncitizens were registered to vote in California ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election. When federal officials raised this concern, Weber’s office did not deny it, McCotter wrote.

McCotter gave Weber until 9 a.m. PDT Thursday to respond to his letter or face "emergency relief." The letter was sent on Tuesday, but wasn't widely reported by media outlets until Wednesday.

“On July 16, [U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne] Mullin made you aware that there are likely numerous noncitizens registered to vote in the federal election in California,” McCotter wrote to Weber. “He then asked for your cooperation to ensure the accuracy of those findings and to prevent noncitizen votes from diluting citizen votes. Your response the following week did not refute that noncitizens are registered to vote in California.”

McCotter also wrote that Weber’s office did not contest that noncitizens were getting vote-by-mail ballots. He also said that the U.S. Department of Justice sent a thumb drive to Los Angeles County officials with a list of likely noncitizens who are registered to vote in the county. McCotter also asked that state officials separate ballots from registered voters whose citizenship status can’t be independently verified, and he requested Weber check to see if there were any U.S. citizens on the list.

“If individuals on the list have not yet been sent a vote-by-mail ballot, take all immediate and reasonable steps to not provide a ballot to those individuals until we confirm their citizenship status,” McCotter wrote. “If a ballot for any individual on the list has been returned, instruct the appropriate elections official to not verify the signature and/or tabulate the ballot until citizenship can be determined.”

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Democrats who chair elections committees in the California Legislature told The Center Square on Wednesday that the Trump administration’s noncitizen voting claims are flawed and that data used by federal officials to back up their claims has been unreliable.

“Secretary Weber asked for the evidence in July. The Justice Department waited three months to respond, and now demands urgency in acting on it within 48 hours, knowing Election Day is three weeks away and voting has begun in California,” Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, D-Santa Cruz and chair of the Assembly Elections Committee, told The Center Square.

“That is not serious law enforcement," Pellerin said. "It is a reckless attempt to manufacture an election controversy and amplify President Trump’s baseless fraud claims. This is clearly nothing more than yet another despicable attempt to intimidate voters and our elections officials.”

According to previous reporting by The Center Square, the federal action comes just a day after California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, touted California’s vote-by-mail laws, urging voters to mail their ballots at least a week before the midterm election. He also said California voters are able to vote despite policy changes and legal challenges from the federal government.

“It is business as usual,” Bonta said Tuesday at a Los Angeles press conference. “You can still vote in all the ways, on all the days that California law has made available to you.”

Weber’s office did not immediately respond to The Center Square for this story on Wednesday. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office referred The Center Square to Weber's office. The California Department of Justice also did not respond. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California referred The Center Square to the U.S. Department of Justice, which did not respond.