Trump administration sues California to block counting of alleged noncitizen mail ballots

Key Points:

• The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against California election officials, seeking to block the counting of mail-in ballots from individuals identified as "likely" noncitizens until their status is confirmed ahead of the November midterm elections.
• The Justice Department claims California failed to review a list of 20,000 alleged noncitizens on voter rolls within a 48-hour deadline and demands segregation of their ballots, while California officials dispute the allegations and the methodology behind the list.
• California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta criticized the federal government's actions as lacking evidence, uncollaborative, and potentially violating federal law prohibiting changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election.
• California officials emphasized that voting is already underway and stated the state's elections comply with federal law, rejecting the request to withhold ballots and highlighting prior instances where similar claims of noncitizen voters were disproven.
• The Trump administration has prioritized investigating noncitizen voting, though experts say such cases are rare; the Justice Department has charged about 50 alleged noncitizen voters among roughly 90 election misconduct cases this year, out of over 227 million registered voters nationwide.