The Justice Department sued California on October 15, asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to require the state to set aside mail ballots from voters the government believes are likely noncitizens. The complaint seeks citizenship checks before those ballots are counted, CNBC reported.
The lawsuit followed a letter two days earlier from acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. McCotter gave the state 48 hours to check a list of people the department suspected were noncitizens who had been sent ballots for the November 3 election.
Weber said the list contained approximately 20,000 names and had not been sent to her office. In her written response, she objected to the demand that the state obtain the list and confirm everyone's citizenship within that deadline. The disputed list does not itself establish that those people are noncitizens or voted illegally.
Her office said it had previously requested the methodology and data sources behind the administration's noncitizen-registration claims and had received none. Weber said California requires U.S. citizenship to register to vote and removes ineligible registrants from its rolls.
