SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The Trump administration filed a lawsuit against California election officials on October 15, 2026, requesting a judge to prevent the state from counting mail-in ballots for the upcoming midterm elections from individuals identified by the federal government as "likely" noncitizens until their citizenship status can be verified.
The lawsuit follows the Justice Department's claim that California officials did not meet a 48-hour deadline to review a password-protected thumb drive containing a list of 20,000 names believed to be noncitizens who received ballots for the November 3 election. California sends ballots to all registered voters. A senior Justice Department official had previously threatened legal action if California did not comply with the request.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber responded in a letter to the Justice Department, stating that the federal government has not provided evidence supporting the claim that the 20,000 names on the state's voter rolls are noncitizens. She referenced a previous instance where the federal government alleged that nearly 16,000 potential noncitizens were on Nevada's voter rolls, but it was later confirmed that all were U.S. citizens.
Weber noted that voting is already in progress in California and criticized the Justice Department's demands as "unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians' right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide." She asserted that California's elections are in "full compliance" with federal law.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan confirmed receipt of the letter and thumb drive, stating that he did not consider the thumb drive a secure device, as the password was written on a sticky note.
The Justice Department's lawsuit claims that the federal government attempted to collaborate with California to identify noncitizens registered to vote, but California allegedly made no serious effort to do so. The lawsuit requests that the court enjoin California from counting mail-in ballots from likely noncitizens until their citizenship status can be confirmed.
Weber, named in the lawsuit, indicated that the federal government's outreach was not collaborative. She mentioned that the Department of Homeland Security previously claimed that California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls but did not provide the requested methodology or data sources.
The letter from acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter required the state to research the list of 20,000 individuals within 48 hours. For those whose citizenship cannot be verified, the state was instructed to segregate their mail-in ballots and not provide ballots to anyone who had not yet received one.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta stated at a press conference that state officials would not comply with the federal government's requests to withhold ballots for the alleged noncitizen voters. He pointed out that the number of alleged noncitizens on the state's voter rolls had decreased from 190,000 to 20,000.
Bonta criticized the Trump administration for violating federal law, which prohibits changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election, calling their actions "unprecedented, baseless, lawless territory."
The Trump administration has prioritized the investigation of noncitizen voters this year, despite evidence suggesting that such occurrences are rare. The Justice Department has charged approximately 90 individuals for various forms of election misconduct in 2026, including 50 who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. There were over 227 million registered voters in the United States during the 2024 presidential election.