Trump threatens California officials with imprisonment over stance on mail ballots

Key Points:

• The US Justice Department warned Los Angeles County and California election officials they could be liable for abetting a federal crime if they count mail ballots from over 20,000 individuals the Trump administration alleges are likely noncitizens.
• The warning came shortly before the November 3 midterm elections, following a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department to block California from counting these ballots.
• Acting US Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter emphasized that noncitizen voting is a federal crime and urged officials to take measures to prevent voter fraud, while California officials have pushed back, citing concerns over election integrity and data privacy.
• Los Angeles County officials have refused to comply with the Justice Department’s demands, questioning the methodology behind the list of alleged noncitizen voters, which the department says is based on internal immigration records and data matching.
• The Trump administration has claimed evidence of widespread noncitizen voter registration, though studies indicate actual noncitizen voting is rare, and some verification systems have incorrectly flagged naturalized citizens as noncitizens.