DOJ Sues California Over 20,000 Alleged Noncitizen Voters, Asks Judge to Set Their Mail Ballots Aside
The Justice Department sued California on Thursday, alleging that more than 20,000 people federal agencies believe are likely noncitizens are registered to vote in the state and have been mailed ballots for the Nov. 3 general election. The suit asks a federal judge to order California to set those ballots aside until each voter’s citizenship is verified.
The complaint, United States v. State of California, No. 2:26-cv-12025, was filed Oct. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. It names the State of California, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean C. Logan, both in their official capacities. Lawyers listed on it include Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal A. Essayli of Los Angeles.
A 48-HOUR DEADLINE AND A THUMB DRIVE
According to the complaint, the federal government sent California and Los Angeles County officials a list of “over 20,000 individuals” on Oct. 13 and asked them to review it with federal agencies, to set aside ballots from anyone whose citizenship they could not confirm, and to finish that review “by today at noon,” meaning Thursday. “California failed to do so,” the complaint says.
Instead, the complaint says, Logan’s office “announced via a press release that its office rejected an encrypted thumb drive from a federal agent.” In that Oct. 14 statement, Logan said the Justice Department letter arrived “21 days prior to Election Day” with “a USB drive purportedly containing the referenced records, along with a handwritten note providing a password.” He said his office had not opened it: “We do not consider the device a secure medium. Additionally, the letter does not specify the number of individuals involved or describe the information contained in the records.” He added that any action to remove a voter “must be based on verifiable information, not assertions of unconfirmed data matching.”
HOW THE FEDS SAY THEY BUILT THE LIST
The complaint lays out how the government says it found the names. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services compared California’s voter roster, which the state makes available for purchase, with its own records, used “third-party software” to grade matches as high, medium or low confidence, tied high-confidence matches to an alien registration number, and checked for naturalization, derived citizenship, State Department records and Social Security death records before a second-level review. The list then went to Homeland Security Investigations, which ran its own “data enrichment” step.
The complaint says this was done without the federal SAVE citizenship-check program because, “to the best of the government’s knowledge, California has not submitted any voter rolls” through it. HSI, it says, “reasonably believes that around 20,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in California,” with “many addresses listed in Los Angeles County.” In the Justice Department’s announcement, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin called it a “preliminary analysis” and said “the analysis and review remain ongoing.”
The complaint also says California mailed ballots to every registered voter on Oct. 1, as state law requires, and that signature checks carry “a strong presumption of validity even for ballots signed not with a name but with a simple ‘X.’” It argues it is “not practicable or feasible” for federal investigators to check that many people before the election ends.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS ASKING FOR
The suit brings one claim: that by sending and counting ballots after being told about likely noncitizen voters, California is “knowingly” facilitating violations of 18 U.S.C. § 611, the federal ban on noncitizen voting, and is preempted under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The government asks for preliminary and permanent orders blocking California from counting, in federal races, mail ballots from the people on its list “until those individuals’ citizenship status can be verified,” and requiring citizenship checks “beyond relying on unverified statements of citizenship necessary to registering.”
“State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said in the announcement. “If found responsible in a court of law, the State of California will have seriously undermined confidence in our electoral system.”
These are allegations. No court has ruled on them, and the complaint does not say how many people on the list, if any, actually voted.
CALIFORNIA PUSHES BACK
Weber called the effort unlawful in a statement reported by ABC News: “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.” She said state law requires that only citizens register and that ineligible registrants be removed. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the suit “a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” in a statement reported by KRCR.
The department has lost to Weber before. In January 2026, a federal judge dismissed without leave to amend an earlier Justice Department suit, United States v. Weber, that sought California’s full statewide voter database, according to Weber’s office. ABC News also reported that when Nevada reviewed 185 people that DHS had flagged as possible noncitizens, the state found all of them were citizens.
The Justice Department says this case is narrower: the complaint says its claim “targets solely” the mail ballots of the people the two federal agencies identified.
WHAT COMES NEXT
California has not yet filed a response in court. Because ballots are already out and Election Day is less than three weeks away, a fast fight over a preliminary injunction is likely.
Sources: Complaint, United States v. State of California, No. 2:26-cv-12025 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 15, 2026), posted by the U.S. Department of Justice; Justice Department press release “Justice Department Sues State of California over Voter List” (Oct. 15, 2026), justice.gov; statement of Dean C. Logan, Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk (Oct. 14, 2026), lavote.gov; California Secretary of State news release on United States v. Weber (Jan. 15, 2026), sos.ca.gov; ABC News (Oct. 15, 2026) for Secretary Weber’s statement and the Nevada review; KRCR (Oct. 15, 2026) for Gov. Newsom’s statement. Cover photo: Radomianin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. In-post background: 2025 Los Angeles County ballot, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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