The Justice Department sued California on Thursday, asking a federal judge to stop the state from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 people it says are likely noncitizens until their citizenship is verified.
The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, came after California let a 48-hour deadline pass. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter had demanded the state review the list, which was handed to Los Angeles County on a password-protected thumb drive.
The department wants California to set aside ballots from people on the list and confirm their citizenship before counting them. Homeland Security Investigations built the list from public voter registration records. Because California mails a ballot to every registered voter, the department says everyone on it has received or will receive one.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber says federal officials never sent her office the list or explained how it was made.
"This is an emergency of the DOJ's creation," Weber wrote to McCotter. "California's election administration will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands."
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the demand "more dangerous nonsense from a President losing his grip on reality," adding that "California's elections are NOT Donald Trump's to control."
The department's argument is simpler, and it is written into federal law: noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections, and California's Nov. 3 vote is already under way. Every ballot counted from someone who cannot legally vote cancels out a real citizen's vote — and no principle of states' rights protects that.
This suit is the sharp end of a much larger push. The Trump administration has spent months pressing states over alleged noncitizen voting — and every one of these fights runs into the same wall: the Constitution gives states the job of running elections, while Washington claims the duty of protecting them. This case will decide where that wall actually stands.
A federal judge now has to decide the question with ballots already in voters' hands: verify first, or count now and ask questions later. For an administration that has made election integrity a signature cause, the answer is obvious — voting is sacred, and sacred things get protected. The ruling, whatever it is, will land with less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3.
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