The Trump administration opened a criminal investigation in California following allegations that thousands of non-citizens were registered to vote in the state, and began subpoenaing election officials.
This development, reported by Bloomberg Law and the New York Times, comes just days before the US mid-term elections in which the president’s party is expected to suffer significant losses.
Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that California’s elections were “corrupt” and “rigged,” and in recent days his administration has taken aggressive steps to sow doubt about the election results well before the polls closed.
Some employees of the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office have received grand jury subpoenas, the office confirmed.
Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, said in a statement that the court rulings confirmed that election officials followed the law and that “threats and intimidation have no place in elections.”
“At every step, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken a confrontational and contradictory approach,” Logan said. “We will take all necessary steps to keep our employees safe and remain focused on serving the voters of Los Angeles County so they can exercise their right to vote.”
The Orange County Registrar of Voters also received a subpoena this week related to a criminal investigation, the office confirmed to the Guardian, in addition to three in September. The federal grand jury subpoenas seek “unredacted voter registration information” for 80 possible registrants, the office said.
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected an administration request to order California election officials to segregate and not count the ballots of 20,000 people who the White House says are likely noncitizens. Non-citizen voting is very rare.
“This case concerns the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election,” U.S. District Judge David Carter said in his ruling. “Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to force a state and local government to abandon its own constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch. »
Carter agreed Thursday to appoint a special master to evaluate the administration’s claims that California has noncitizens on its voter rolls.
Earlier this month, Trump’s Justice Department also criminally charged 28 green card holders in California, accused of fraudulently registering to vote and voting illegally.
Reuters contributed to this report
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