Justice Department threatens legal action against California over alleged noncitizen voters

Key Points:

• The Justice Department has sent letters to California officials demanding a review of a list of potential noncitizens on voter rolls, threatening legal action if they do not comply by a specified deadline.
• The DOJ provided a password-protected thumb drive containing names of individuals believed to be noncitizens who received mail-in ballots for the 2026 election, requesting officials to segregate but not cancel these ballots until citizenship is verified.
• California election officials have expressed concerns about the security and validity of the data, with Los Angeles County refusing to access the thumb drive due to privacy and security protocols and emphasizing the need for verifiable information before removing voters.
• The DOJ’s actions come amid a broader Trump administration effort to investigate alleged noncitizen voting, a phenomenon election experts say is rare, and have raised fears among state officials about potential postelection legal challenges.
• Critics, including election officials and former DOJ personnel, view these moves as attempts to intimidate voters and lay groundwork for claims of widespread voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence supporting such claims.