Driving the news: Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter sent a letter to Los Angeles County Registrar/Clerk Dean Dean Logan on Tuesday along with a USB drive of “likely non-citizens who received an absentee ballot,” according to a copy of the letter shared with Axios.
- McCotter is asking local authorities to investigate their citizenship status by noon on October 15. The letter does not specify how many people are on the list.
- For anyone whose status cannot be confirmed, the DOJ is directing officials to “separate, do not void” those ballots and suspend verification or signature counting. of all ballots already returned.
- The DOJ is also directing officials to deny ballots to people on the list unless their citizenship has been confirmed.
- California Secretary of State Shirley Weber received a similar letter.
Point of friction: McCotter concluded his letter with a threat: “If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to request emergency assistance.”
What they say: “This should not be controversial, because the criminal code is clear: Only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections. It is a federal crime for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections, and the DOJ is asking California to ensure that this does not happen,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement.
- The California Secretary of State’s office and the Los Angeles County office did not respond to requests for comment.
The other side: “One must ask why the Justice Department would violate its own rules for investigating an election so close to Election Day, especially when its past assertions were full of errors,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said in a statement.
- Becker added that the administration could have investigated California’s voter rolls well before mail-in ballots began being distributed on October 5.
The big picture: This request intensifies the administration’s efforts to uncover suspected non-citizen voters.
- In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed that more than 190,000 voters were mistakenly registered in California, a claim disputed by state officials.
- ICE investigators, FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors have devoted significant resources to increasing the number of cases and charges against illegal voting, with approximately 1,600 cases pending as of mid-September.
Yes, but: The administration’s sweeping allegations of mass illegal registration and non-citizen voting quickly faded upon inspection.
- After alleging 16,000 illegal registrations in Nevada, a review by state election officials saw that number shrink to potentially 185, according to the New York Times.
- In Pennsylvania, DHS officials admitted they had varying degrees of confidence in the flags they made out of about 14,000 voters, according to Votebeat.
- DHS also said New Jersey has 35,000 non-citizen voters. Gov. Mike Sherril (D-N.J.) admitted to making registration errors due to a software error, but the number was only a fraction of DHS’s claim: about 6,600.
Flashback: There have been software errors leading to registration issues before, especially for people using DMV services like getting a driver’s license.
- But election experts note that actual non-citizen voting remains rare.
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