Lawyers are scratching their heads over the DOJ’s California lawsuit

Key Points:

• The U.S. Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate about 20,000 California ballots allegedly mailed to "likely noncitizens," aiming to prevent their counting before the midterm elections.
• Legal experts widely criticized the lawsuit as legally baseless, noting it lacks citation of any civil statute and mischaracterizes federal authority over elections, predicting it will likely fail in court.
• The DOJ's case relies on unsubstantiated claims from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data comparisons, with no concrete evidence provided, and contradicts federal laws prohibiting large-scale voter roll changes close to elections.
• Past federal government estimates of noncitizen voter registrations have been proven inaccurate, and the DOJ's demand has been characterized as a desperate publicity stunt intended to undermine confidence in the election process.
• Election law scholars and former DOJ officials view the lawsuit as an unprecedented and improper attempt to interfere with state-managed elections and potentially influence election outcomes by sowing doubt.