Trump administration escalates voter roll fight with threats against California election officials

By Jeremy Herb, Tierney Sneed, Evan Perez, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration threatened to take legal action against California election officials if they did not review a list of alleged noncitizens on Los Angeles’ voter rolls within 48 hours, according to Tuesday letters from the Justice Department obtained by CNN.

The letters, signed by the number two official at the Justice Department, are an escalation in DOJ’s attempts to press for aggressive voter purges with ballots already mailed out in some states, after courts have repeatedly pushed back at attempts by the administration to insert itself in the running of elections. It’s the latest step in a government-wide push to find voter fraud amid President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread cheating in elections.

The Justice Department is demanding that the election officials refuse to send ballots to the alleged noncitizen voters and is requesting that election officials segregate ballots from voters on the list until their citizenship is confirmed.

Acting deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote in the letters to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder and the California Secretary of State that if election officials do not take steps to identify the alleged noncitizen voters, DOJ would “have no choice but to seek emergency relief.”

McCotter wrote that the department provided a password-protected thumb drive containing names the administration “believes are likely non-citizens” who were sent a mail ballot this year. It requests that the election officials work with the Department of Homeland Security to comply with its demands.

The letters were first reported by Reuters.

Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan said in a statement Wednesday that his office was reviewing the DOJ letter in coordination with California’s secretary of state and attorney general.

Logan said that his office had not accessed the thumb drive provided by the federal government “because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols.” The password for the thumb drive was handwritten on what appeared to be a blue post-it note attached to the bottom of the letter sent to Logan’s office on Tuesday.

“We do not consider the device a secure medium,” he said. “Additionally, the letter does not specify the number of individuals involved or describe the information contained in the records.”

A spokesperson for California Secretary of State Shirley Weber did not immediately respond to CNN’s inquiries.

It is not clear what legal avenue the administration could use to force California election officials to take the actions it seeks. The Constitution gives states the primary job of running elections, though it allows Congress to pass some regulations of the vote as well.

Earlier this summer, the Justice Department sent letters warning it would prosecute election officials who did not take adequate steps to remove noncitizens from voter registration files, but state officials of both parties dismissed the threat.

It’s unclear why the Justice Department sent the letter now, as election officials view the window for changing protocols as closed.

“California’s voter lists are public, and this administration has had 21 months with total control of the federal government to review those public lists,” said David Becker, a former DOJ voting section attorney who now advises election administrators.

“California sent out mail ballots to all voters on Oct 5. One must question why the DOJ would violate its own rules about investigating elections close to Election Day, and over a week after they knew the state had already mailed ballots out, particularly when their past claims have been full of errors,” Becker said.

The Justice Department defended sending the letters.

“Federal law is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections. The Department will take all necessary legal action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal law,” said DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels.

The Trump administration has alleged there are hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls. In August, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed DHS had identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in four states — including California, along with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada — by comparing public voter rolls with federal immigration records.

But those claims have come under immense scrutiny and, in some cases, failed to hold up. In Nevada, for instance, DHS acknowledged to state officials that its initial claim of 15,900 non-citizen registrants was an unvetted preliminary finding, and that it had only “confirmed” 185 of them through manual review. Last month, Nevada officials told DHS that their own subsequent review found all 185 were citizens — a conclusion DHS disputes.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has also sought unredacted state voter roll data from the states as part of its hunt for noncitizens on the rolls. The department has sued 30 states demanding the data — but lost every case where a judge has ruled so far, including in California.

Other attempts by the administration to police how states handle elections have also been shut down in court. The Supreme Court blocked a Trump directive for the US Postal Service to screen mail ballots, and a 2025 executive order from the president seeking to boost the proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration was halted in court as well.

Trump’s efforts to implement those requirements through legislation faltered in Congress this year. A recent judge’s ruling dismissing a non-citizen voter prosecution the administration brought in Florida also has raised constitutional questions about the federal law barring non-citizen voting.

The administration did secure a major legal win when the Supreme Court okayed a federal immigration data system that Trump has encouraged states to use to vet the citizenship status of their registered voters. Election officials in more than half of the states use the system voluntarily. However, even Republican election officials have balked at proposals from Justice Department that would force them to purge voters whom the administration has deemed ineligible — particularly given the accuracy concerns around the federal government’s data tools.

This article has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Gabe Cohen contributed to this report.