{"id":499147,"date":"2026-10-17T10:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T10:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/499147\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T10:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T10:36:10","slug":"big-assertions-sharp-exchanges-little-clarity-define-doj-election-battle-with-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/499147\/","title":{"rendered":"Big assertions, sharp exchanges, little clarity define DOJ election battle with California"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First came the letter from acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter \u2014 just three weeks before the Nov. 3 election \u2014 demanding that Los Angeles County\u2019s top elections official launch a sweeping investigation<\/a> into thousands of voters the Trump administration alleges are \u201clikely noncitizens\u201d and withhold their ballots in the meantime.<\/p>\n

The letter arrived with a thumb drive purporting to contain the list of voters in question, and a handwritten note providing the password. Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder\/County Clerk\u2019s office, said accessing the device broke security protocols, and he wouldn\u2019t open it.<\/p>\n

Then came an Excel spreadsheet, listing some 20,000 voters by name, date of birth and address. It appeared to contain voters from across the state of California, not just L.A. County, and provided no information on the Trump administration\u2019s methodology for questioning those voters. Logan\u2019s office again pushed back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot withhold or refuse to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations, nor can we disregard the legal requirements governing our election \u2014 and we certainly have no authority to act on records that are outside of our jurisdiction,\u201d Logan said.<\/p>\n

On Friday, the back and forth escalated yet again, when the Justice Department warned in a letter to L.A. County attorneys that county elections officials who tabulate ballots from the flagged voters could face criminal prosecution for being \u201caiders and abettors to a federal crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last week, Trump administration officials and California election leaders have been locked in a fiercely contentious standoff over alleged election fraud<\/a> that independent elections experts say is like nothing they have ever seen before.<\/p>\n

The battle \u2014 which escalated into a federal lawsuit<\/a> filed Thursday by the Justice Department against the state, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Logan \u2014 features striking assertions of official misconduct. They include willful indifference to systemic election fraud among California officials, as alleged by Trump officials, and a nefarious effort by the administration to \u201clay the groundwork\u201d for questioning any unfavorable election results<\/a> next month, as alleged by California leaders and independent elections experts.<\/p>\n

With little public clarity around the voters whose registration is being contested and how the administration came to question their eligibility, the debate has centered instead on the efficacy of vetting voter rolls right before an election and the increasingly bitter claims of political meddling from the many federal, state and local officials involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore dangerous nonsense from a President losing his grip on reality,\u201d Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X.<\/p>\n

\"Acting <\/p>\n

Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter sent a letter demanding that L.A. County\u2019s top elections official investigate thousands of voters the Trump administration alleges are \u201clikely noncitizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Finn Gomez \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Governor. You are violating federal law by facilitating voting by noncitizens,\u201d responded First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, whose office is leading the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMail ballots are already in most voters\u2019 hands, and Election Day is less than three weeks away. Every count, recount, hand count, lawsuit, and audit has found that there\u2019s no widespread voter\u202ffraud\u202fin the U.S. The Trump Admin\u2019s last-minute demands are meritless, and we look forward to making our case in court,\u201d California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta wrote on the same platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe produced a list of 20,000 noncitizens on your voter rolls, and your response is \u2018it\u2019s too late\u2019 because you already mailed the ballots. Not good enough,\u201d Essayli shot back. \u201cIt\u2019s a violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal law for California to dilute the votes of American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both sides have accused the other of being unreasonable and of ignoring practical concerns about voting and election security, though in very different ways.<\/p>\n

Trump administration officials have said their effort \u201cshould not be controversial,\u201d and reflects a common-sense approach to election oversight. \u201cThe law is clear, aliens in the United States cannot vote in federal elections,\u201d McCotter said.<\/p>\n

In its lawsuit, the Justice Department argued it is \u201cnot practicable or feasible\u201d for the federal government to investigate \u201cthousands, let alone tens of thousands, of individuals\u201d before the November election alone, so California and local officials should be required to help them do it.<\/p>\n

California officials \u2014 joined by independent elections experts \u2014 have accused the Trump administration of breaking the law to bolster a grand election conspiracy the president has propped up for years without evidence, including by trying to purge voters from rolls right before an election.<\/p>\n

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the National Voter Registration Act prohibits states from conducting systemic maintenance of voter lists within 90 days of an election, and that the U.S. Supreme Court recently affirmed that limit.<\/p>\n

Bonta said the timing of the Justice Department\u2019s demands \u201creeks of desperation and bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Los <\/p>\n

Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder\/County Clerk\u2019s office, attends the opening of a new ballot processing center in City of Industry in 2024.<\/p>\n

(Irfan Khan \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

State officials and election experts also have questioned why Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin suggested California had some 190,000 noncitizen voters on its rolls<\/a> as recently as July if the number now stands at 20,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to the 170,000? You just got those wrong?\u201d Bonta said. He also noted with derision that the administration\u2019s lawsuit repeatedly hedges its assertions by saying that federal officials \u201cbelieve\u201d that noncitizens \u201cmay be\u201d registered in California.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou believe, or you know?\u201d Bonta said. \u201cThey may be or they are?\u201d<\/p>\n

Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, said the 20,000 flagged voters \u201care the ones that have been manually verified\u201d as ineligible, but that number \u201ccan and will go up\u201d as federal authorities continue their work. She referred additional questions about the figures to Homeland Security, which did not respond to questions.<\/p>\n

Becker said the administration\u2019s figures \u201cshould be treated with serious skepticism,\u201d given similar claims falling apart elsewhere. He cited a Homeland Security claim of about 16,000 noncitizens on Nevada voter rolls dropping to 185 voters before Nevada officials investigated and found every single one of those voters was a citizen.<\/p>\n

California officials have not shown a similar interest in launching their own investigation.<\/p>\n

In a letter to McCotter, Weber wrote that treating the 20,000 voters on the Justice Department\u2019s list as \u201cineligible until proven otherwise\u201d would not only violate the 90-day quiet period before an election, but amount to \u201can unprecedented suspension \u2014 and even denial \u2014 of voting rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said if the Trump administration has any proof for its claims, California would \u201creview that evidence and any supporting data or methodology\u201d and \u201ctake the appropriate steps in compliance with federal and state law\u201d to address any problems. \u201cHowever, I will not disenfranchise thousands of Californians \u2014 or order any county elections official to do so \u2014 based solely upon an unsupported and likely inaccurate \u2018belie[f]\u2019 that certain voters are \u2018likely\u2019 noncitizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Logan\u2019s office said Friday that it was reviewing the Justice Department\u2019s spreadsheet \u2014 in part to determine how many of the voters are actually in L.A. County \u2014 but had yet to receive requested information on the methodology used for flagging those voters.<\/p>\n

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, chair of the Democratic Assn. of Secretaries of State, said the Trump administration\u2019s efforts in California are \u201canother attempt by the federal government to harass and intimidate elections officials,\u201d and that their timing is \u201cobviously a political attempt\u201d to prevent voters \u2014 particularly Latino voters \u2014from holding the Trump administration accountable for its failed leadership.<\/p>\n

But he also said that California officials \u2014 to the extent they can under the law, and working closely with Bonta \u2014 should work to refute the Trump administration\u2019s claims through their own review of the data, just as Nevada officials did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not afraid to defend our elections,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd California should take that same approach. You cannot be reactive to these situations. You have to be strategic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First came the letter from acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter \u2014 just three weeks before the Nov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7167,193704,7,9,8,81229,204,7738,4515,193703,3164,20096,346,225,3293,193702,1522],"class_list":["post-499147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-ballot","tag-big-assertion","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-dean-logan","tag-election","tag-federal-lawsuit","tag-justice-department","tag-l-a-county-registrar-recorder","tag-list","tag-noncitizen","tag-office","tag-state","tag-thousand","tag-trump-administration-allege","tag-voter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499147","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=499147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}