{"id":497397,"date":"2026-10-15T22:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T22:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497397\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T22:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T22:58:15","slug":"trump-sues-ca-alleging-noncitizens-are-registered-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497397\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump sues CA, alleging noncitizens are registered to vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeanne Kuang<\/a> and Ana B. Ibarra<\/a>, CalMatters<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by CalMatters<\/a>. Sign up<\/a> for their newsletters.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration<\/a> on Thursday sued California and Los Angeles County to try to force elections officials not to count potentially 20,000 registered voters\u2019 ballots, in an extraordinary intervention 19 days before a consequential national election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Justice Department this week wrote to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan demanding that they verify the citizenship status of a specific list of registered voters, or set aside their ballots without counting them in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of a national push by the Trump administration to find instances of non-U.S. citizens voting illegally in elections. The Department of Homeland Security recently claimed that Nevada had nearly 16,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls; they sent the state the names of only 185 voters, who Nevada officials confirmed were all U.S. citizens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

California sends all registered voters a ballot in the mail; county registrars across the state have already done so ahead of the Nov. 3 election in which Californians will decide on a new governor, 14 statewide ballot measures and several competitive races that will be key to which party controls Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Justice Department letters<\/a>, sent to Los Angeles County and Weber by Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General R. Trent McCotter, gave officials 48 hours to comply with its request to review a thumb drive containing a list of registered voters that federal prosecutors allege aren\u2019t citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Logan said he hasn\u2019t reviewed the drive because it\u2019s an unsecure format. Weber wrote McCotter<\/a> saying she had requested data and methodology after federal officials claimed without evidence in July that 190,000 California voters \u201cmay be\u201d noncitizens, but that the officials never provided it.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom<\/a> scoffed at the lawsuit on Thursday as \u201ca sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day\u201d and said the prosecutors\u2019 request to throw out ballots \u201cshould scare the hell out of every American.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to carry out free and fair elections in the Golden State \u2014 and call out this authoritarian as he tries every play in the dictator’s playbook,\u201d Newsom said in a statement.<\/p>\n

He pointed out the request asks local elections officials to violate federal law: The National Voter Registration Act prohibits purging voter rolls within 90 days before an election.<\/p>\n

Both federal and California law require residents to be U.S. citizens to register to vote. Voter fraud is extremely rare, numerous studies have found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

California Democrats urge people to vote<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s actions have alarmed state leaders who say they amount to voter intimidation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that this is very concerning \u2026because it is perceived by so many in California and across this country as a way to deter people from voting,\u201d said Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limon at a rally in Los Angeles for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra Thursday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to defend, to protect the integrity of our elections. California has a robust system of protecting our elections. We check, we verify, and we follow up,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Becerra did not directly address the federal action in his remarks at his rally but promised to put up a fight against the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it is voting, whether it is going to work, whether it’s having good schools, or whether it’s protecting our families against ICE mercenaries, we are here, estamos presentes, and we will fight,\u201d Becerra said from El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But right now our fight is to get the vote out, to make sure everyone understands that our power lies in our vote,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More subpoenas to Orange and San Diego counties<\/p>\n

The lawsuit and Justice Department\u2019s demands come weeks after federal investigators issued grand jury subpoenas to Los Angeles elections officials<\/a> seeking information on registered voters.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors also sought information on registered voters in San Diego County, the news outlet inewsource<\/a> reported, as well as Orange County, according to previously unreported records obtained this week by CalMatters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Orange County\u2019s registrar of voters received three subpoenas for records about individual registered voters on Sept. 10. Subpoenas for both LA and Orange counties were sent at the request of Southern California\u2019s acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wheat. They asked local officials to deliver the information to a Department of Homeland Security investigator.<\/p>\n

One subpoena sought the full voter file for a redacted list of what appears to be 18 registered Orange County voters including any “attestations regarding citizenship status;\u201d two others sought more detailed records on two separate voters including information about whether they had changed their addresses or party affiliation and \u201ccorrespondence related to voter registration.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said his office produced the records and hasn\u2019t gotten any further requests or demands from the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not know why the grand jury requested registration records for these individuals,\u201d Page wrote in an emailed statement. \u201cThe request for this registration information has had no impact on the administration of the 2026 General Election.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on CalMatters<\/a> and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives<\/a> license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jeanne Kuang and Ana B. Ibarra, CalMatters This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,1708,9,8,536,137,611,84,1710],"class_list":["post-497397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-elections","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-orange-county","tag-san-diego-county","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}