Federal Ultimatum Targets California Election Officials
The Department of Justice has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to California state and local election officials, demanding they review a federal list of suspected noncitizen voters by noon Eastern time on Thursday, Oct. 15.
Failure to comply with the deadline will result in legal action, according to letters sent Tuesday to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan. The demand is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to address voter eligibility ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter wrote in the letters that officials must review individuals the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who received mail-in ballots for the upcoming election.
Disputed Evidence and State Response
California Secretary of State Weber’s office issued a statement late Wednesday rejecting the demand, arguing that the Justice Department provided no evidence or legal authority to justify its request.
“The Secretary of State’s (SOS) office received a demand to review a list of an unknown number of people the ‘Federal Government believes are likely noncitizens,’ but the United States Department of Justice did not provide the list to our office,” the statement said.
Weber directly criticized the federal government’s approach in a quote included in the statement. “The USDOJ’s relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states’ protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections,” Weber said.
While Weber’s office stated that the DOJ did not provide the list to their office, Reuters reported that the Justice Department provided Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive containing names. The county was demanded to determine whether any U.S. citizens had been mistakenly included on the list.
Demands for Ballot Suspension
The federal demands require officials to take specific actions regarding ballots associated with the listed individuals. For those whose citizenship could not be independently confirmed, McCotter demanded that ballots be set aside until their status was resolved.
McCotter’s letter instructed officials to stop sending ballots to listed individuals who had not yet received one. It also ordered them to refrain from verifying signatures or tabulating ballots already returned until citizenship could be determined.
“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,” McCotter wrote in the letter. He added a stark warning regarding the stakes of the request: “Allowing noncitizens to vote cancels citizen votes.”
Broader Legal and Political Context
The Justice Department’s actions are part of a wider campaign by the Trump administration to identify and remove noncitizens from voter registration lists across the country. Federal officials have alleged that hundreds of thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote, though those claims have faced significant scrutiny over data accuracy.
DOJ spokeswoman Kiersten Pels defended the department’s position in a statement reported by Politico. “This should not be controversial, as the criminal statute is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections,” Pels said, asserting that the Department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity.
The current confrontation follows a pattern of aggressive litigation by the administration. Federal officials have sought unredacted voter registration data from states nationwide, filing lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, D.C., over their refusal to provide records. So far, federal judges have rejected the department’s demands in cases decided, including litigation involving California.
California’s election officials had not publicly responded to the latest demands as of Wednesday. The state began mailing ballots to registered voters on October 5, setting the stage for a potential clash between state election administration and federal oversight.
The legal battles over voter data are occurring alongside other judicial challenges to the administration’s policies. Courts have halted parts of Trump’s 2025 executive actions, and the Supreme Court recently kept on hold new Postal Service requirements for mail ballots, indicating a complex legal landscape surrounding the upcoming election.