{"id":165194,"date":"2026-10-16T15:01:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/16\/doj-sues-to-impose-bespoke-20000-disenfranchisement-list-on-california\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T15:01:34","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T23:01:34","slug":"doj-sues-to-impose-bespoke-20000-disenfranchisement-list-on-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/16\/doj-sues-to-impose-bespoke-20000-disenfranchisement-list-on-california\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ Sues To Impose Bespoke 20,000 Disenfranchisement List On California"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, the Trump administration sauntered into federal court in Los Angeles and asked a judge to order California not to count roughly 20,000 ballots flagged by an unnamed \u201cthird-party software\u201d using a commercially available list of registered voters. The feds want the state to toss those ballots in a pile, leaving them uncounted until such time as somebody, somewhere<\/em> proves they were cast by U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

The drama began Tuesday when Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter fired off letters<\/a> to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan giving the state 48 hours to \u201csegregate\u2014not cancel\u201d the ballots of people on a list DOJ hand-delivered to Logan\u2019s office on a password-protected thumb drive.<\/p>\n

Logan declined<\/a> to stick a random thumb drive into LA\u2019s election database, which the government describes as \u201cdemonstrating a total lack of commitment to work with the Federal Government to protect the integrity of our elections.\u201d And Secretary Weber noted that the Department of Homeland Security has been pretty cagey about showing its work \u2014 particularly since DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin originally put<\/a> the number of \u201cnon-citizens registered to vote in California\u201d at 190,832. The tally is now \u201cover 20,000,\u201d or \u201caround 20,000,\u201d or \u201cnearly 20,000,\u201d depending on which paragraph of the complaint you\u2019re reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the many high-profile examples of states purging US citizens from their voter rolls based on DHS\/SAVE data, SOS immediately requested written information about their methodology and data sources to back up their claims,\u201d she wrote<\/a>. \u201cThey refused and provided California with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the 48 hours was up, the DOJ filed its complaint<\/a>, asking the court to enjoin California \u201cfrom tabulating in federal elections vote-by-mail ballots received from individuals identified by the Federal Government as likely noncitizens until those individuals\u2019 citizenship status can be verified.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reasoning is bad \u2026<\/h2>\n

Under California law, every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail. The DOJ\u2019s theory is that the state law is preempted by 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 611, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. By mailing ballots to every registered voter and then counting them \u201cwithout verifying citizenship in collaboration with the Federal Government,\u201d California is allegedly frustrating the purpose of \u00a7 611.<\/p>\n

To get there, DOJ dusts off Norwood v. Harrison<\/a><\/em>, a 1973 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that lending free textbooks to segregation academies amounted to illegal discrimination by the state of Mississippi itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause California cannot pass a statute allowing noncitizens to vote in a federal election, it also cannot induce, encourage, promote, or knowingly facilitate noncitizen voting,\u201d the DOJ extrapolates here.<\/p>\n

But \u00a7 611 is a criminal statute aimed at noncitizens. It says nothing about how states register voters, verify eligibility, or count ballots. And the standard DOJ wants a court to override is one Congress wrote itself.<\/p>\n

The complaint demands that California verify eligibility \u201cbeyond relying on unverified statements of citizenship necessary to registering.\u201d That \u201cunverified statement\u201d is the sworn attestation on the federal voter registration form created by the National Voter Registration Act. In Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court held that states must \u201caccept and use\u201d that form and cannot demand additional documentary proof of citizenship.<\/p>\n

So DOJ\u2019s position is that federal law preempts California from complying with federal law.<\/p>\n

\u2026 And the facts are worse.<\/h2>\n

The administration already tried this ploy in Nevada, albeit without involving the court.<\/p>\n

On July 16, Secretary Mullin said there might be \u201cas many as\u201d 15,903 noncitizens on the state\u2019s rolls. When the state asked how DHS got that number, officials conceded on an August 13 call that they\u2019d identified 185 people, working from a July 2025 copy of Nevada\u2019s public voter file. DHS then sent over 185 \u201cvoter case numbers.\u201d <\/p>\n

When Nevada asked for names and dates of birth to verify, a DHS official replied<\/a> that the agency would \u201cprefer to limit our information sharing to just providing you the voter ID from your public voter list.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Nevada\u2019s Deputy Attorney General Greg Ott explained, \u201cA single voter registration number may belong to multiple individuals.\u201d DHS countered that it would supply a \u201crefined list\u201d if only Nevada would hand over its voters\u2019 \u201cfederal enumerators,\u201d i.e., Social Security numbers \u2014 the very information 26 courts have already said that states cannot be forced to disgorge to the feds.<\/p>\n

Nevada eventually managed to check and found zero evidence that any of the 185 voters flagged were non-citizens. And there\u2019s no reason to believe that DHS\u2019s California list is any more accurate.<\/p>\n

The DOJ says that California\u2019s voter roster \u201cis made available for purchase,\u201d but concedes that the commercial product \u201ctypically do[es] not contain complete information on an individual,\u201d so USCIS ran it through \u201cthird-party software\u201d to sort matches into \u201chigh, medium, or low confidence.\u201d The final list of \u201clikely\u201d non-citizens was compiled by USCIS\u2019s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS), working with Homeland Security Investigations as part of a \u201cmultiagency and multilevel review.\u201d But FDNS employees describe it somewhat differently.<\/p>\n

According to a whistleblower disclosure<\/a> last month publicized by Senators Alex Padilla and Chuck Schumer, FDNS staff were abruptly diverted to an \u201cUnlawful Voter Initiative\u201d that has been \u201cusing highly questionable data methods to identify purported unlawful voters.\u201d Personnel were handed \u201cunreliable DHS voter data of dubious origins, that is compiled with \u2018supplemental magic,’\u201d and were \u201crequired to accept the data even when they believe it to be inaccurate.\u201d The whistleblower alleges that FDNS staff even accessed state voter-lookup sites by impersonating voters.<\/p>\n

But the requested relief is batshit!<\/em><\/h2>\n

Based on this stellar record, the Trump administration demands that California pull 20,000 votes out of the millions which are already coming in and dump them in a pile to be verified \u2026 eventually. <\/p>\n

The complaint concedes that \u201cit is not practicable or feasible for the United States to investigate before the 2026 election concludes thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of individuals.\u201d The federal government, which does have custody of immigration records, couldn\u2019t possibly check these 20,000 names before the election. Instead, the state of California, which is in the middle of trying to actually run that election, should do it, but without the immigration records or matching data, and without relying on the one form of proof Congress says counts.<\/p>\n

This is a transparent effort to disenfranchise thousands of voters \u2014 or, failing that, to discredit the tally ahead of what looks to be a Democratic blowout. DOJ cannot possibly think the courts will let them selectively purge state voter rolls just 18 days before the midterms, particularly when the National Voter Registration Act imposes a 90-day quiet period<\/a> before elections. Which is probably why, as of this writing, they haven\u2019t even bothered to seek emergency relief.<\/p>\n

US v. California<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The post DOJ Sues To Impose Bespoke 20,000 Disenfranchisement List On California<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, the Trump administration sauntered into federal court in Los Angeles and asked a judge to order California not to count roughly 20,000 ballots flagged by an unnamed \u201cthird-party software\u201d using a commercially available list of registered voters. The feds want the state to toss those ballots in a pile, leaving them uncounted until such time as somebody, somewhere<\/em> proves they were cast by U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

The drama began Tuesday when Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter fired off letters<\/a> to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan giving the state 48 hours to \u201csegregate\u2014not cancel\u201d the ballots of people on a list DOJ hand-delivered to Logan\u2019s office on a password-protected thumb drive.<\/p>\n

Logan declined<\/a> to stick a random thumb drive into LA\u2019s election database, which the government describes as \u201cdemonstrating a total lack of commitment to work with the Federal Government to protect the integrity of our elections.\u201d And Secretary Weber noted that the Department of Homeland Security has been pretty cagey about showing its work \u2014 particularly since DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin originally put<\/a> the number of \u201cnon-citizens registered to vote in California\u201d at 190,832. The tally is now \u201cover 20,000,\u201d or \u201caround 20,000,\u201d or \u201cnearly 20,000,\u201d depending on which paragraph of the complaint you\u2019re reading.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the many high-profile examples of states purging US citizens from their voter rolls based on DHS\/SAVE data, SOS immediately requested written information about their methodology and data sources to back up their claims,\u201d she wrote<\/a>. \u201cThey refused and provided California with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the 48 hours was up, the DOJ filed its complaint<\/a>, asking the court to enjoin California \u201cfrom tabulating in federal elections vote-by-mail ballots received from individuals identified by the Federal Government as likely noncitizens until those individuals\u2019 citizenship status can be verified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under California law, every registered voter receives a ballot in the mail. The DOJ\u2019s theory is that the state law is preempted by 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 611, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. By mailing ballots to every registered voter and then counting them \u201cwithout verifying citizenship in collaboration with the Federal Government,\u201d California is allegedly frustrating the purpose of \u00a7 611.<\/p>\n

To get there, DOJ dusts off Norwood v. Harrison<\/a><\/em>, a 1973 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that lending free textbooks to segregation academies amounted to illegal discrimination by the state of Mississippi itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause California cannot pass a statute allowing noncitizens to vote in a federal election, it also cannot induce, encourage, promote, or knowingly facilitate noncitizen voting,\u201d the DOJ extrapolates here.<\/p>\n

But \u00a7 611 is a criminal statute aimed at noncitizens. It says nothing about how states register voters, verify eligibility, or count ballots. And the standard DOJ wants a court to override is one Congress wrote itself.<\/p>\n

The complaint demands that California verify eligibility \u201cbeyond relying on unverified statements of citizenship necessary to registering.\u201d That \u201cunverified statement\u201d is the sworn attestation on the federal voter registration form created by the National Voter Registration Act. In Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court held that states must \u201caccept and use\u201d that form and cannot demand additional documentary proof of citizenship.<\/p>\n

So DOJ\u2019s position is that federal law preempts California from complying with federal law.<\/p>\n

The administration already tried this ploy in Nevada, albeit without involving the court.<\/p>\n

On July 16, Secretary Mullin said there might be \u201cas many as\u201d 15,903 noncitizens on the state\u2019s rolls. When the state asked how DHS got that number, officials conceded on an August 13 call that they\u2019d identified 185 people, working from a July 2025 copy of Nevada\u2019s public voter file. DHS then sent over 185 \u201cvoter case numbers.\u201d <\/p>\n

When Nevada asked for names and dates of birth to verify, a DHS official replied<\/a> that the agency would \u201cprefer to limit our information sharing to just providing you the voter ID from your public voter list.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Nevada\u2019s Deputy Attorney General Greg Ott explained, \u201cA single voter registration number may belong to multiple individuals.\u201d DHS countered that it would supply a \u201crefined list\u201d if only Nevada would hand over its voters\u2019 \u201cfederal enumerators,\u201d i.e., Social Security numbers \u2014 the very information 26 courts have already said that states cannot be forced to disgorge to the feds.<\/p>\n

Nevada eventually managed to check and found zero evidence that any of the 185 voters flagged were non-citizens. And there\u2019s no reason to believe that DHS\u2019s California list is any more accurate.<\/p>\n

The DOJ says that California\u2019s voter roster \u201cis made available for purchase,\u201d but concedes that the commercial product \u201ctypically do[es] not contain complete information on an individual,\u201d so USCIS ran it through \u201cthird-party software\u201d to sort matches into \u201chigh, medium, or low confidence.\u201d The final list of \u201clikely\u201d non-citizens was compiled by USCIS\u2019s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS), working with Homeland Security Investigations as part of a \u201cmultiagency and multilevel review.\u201d But FDNS employees describe it somewhat differently.<\/p>\n

According to a whistleblower disclosure<\/a> last month publicized by Senators Alex Padilla and Chuck Schumer, FDNS staff were abruptly diverted to an \u201cUnlawful Voter Initiative\u201d that has been \u201cusing highly questionable data methods to identify purported unlawful voters.\u201d Personnel were handed \u201cunreliable DHS voter data of dubious origins, that is compiled with \u2018supplemental magic,’\u201d and were \u201crequired to accept the data even when they believe it to be inaccurate.\u201d The whistleblower alleges that FDNS staff even accessed state voter-lookup sites by impersonating voters.<\/p>\n

Based on this stellar record, the Trump administration demands that California pull 20,000 votes out of the millions which are already coming in and dump them in a pile to be verified \u2026 eventually. <\/p>\n

The complaint concedes that \u201cit is not practicable or feasible for the United States to investigate before the 2026 election concludes thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of individuals.\u201d The federal government, which does have custody of immigration records, couldn\u2019t possibly check these 20,000 names before the election. Instead, the state of California, which is in the middle of trying to actually run that election, should do it, but without the immigration records or matching data, and without relying on the one form of proof Congress says counts.<\/p>\n

This is a transparent effort to disenfranchise thousands of voters \u2014 or, failing that, to discredit the tally ahead of what looks to be a Democratic blowout. DOJ cannot possibly think the courts will let them selectively purge state voter rolls just 18 days before the midterms, particularly when the National Voter Registration Act imposes a 90-day quiet period<\/a> before elections. Which is probably why, as of this writing, they haven\u2019t even bothered to seek emergency relief.<\/p>\n

US v. California<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, the Trump administration sauntered into federal court in Los Angeles and asked a judge to order California not to count roughly 20,000 ballots flagged by an unnamed \u201cthird-party software\u201d using a commercially available list of registered voters. The feds want the state to toss those ballots in a pile, leaving them uncounted until such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}