The U.S. Department of Justice told Orange County election officials on Friday it wants their help to determine the citizenship status of 1,754 people within 48 hours.<\/p>\n
And for those whose citizenship cannot be determined, the federal government asked that election officials \u201csegregate \u2014 not cancel \u2014 those individuals\u2019 vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,\u201d First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in the letter obtained by The Orange County Register.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Justice Department said may belong to noncitizens.<\/p>\n
The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump\u2019s Justice Department, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren\u2019t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.<\/p>\n
In Orange County, the letter was hand-delivered to Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen late Friday afternoon, instead of Bob Page, the county\u2019s registrar of voters.<\/p>\n
Page said county counsel would inform the Justice Department that it\u2019s the registrar\u2019s office that maintains voter registration records and administers elections, not the county clerk-recorder.<\/p>\n
\u201cCounty counsel is evaluating the requests in the USDOJ letter,\u201d Page said.<\/p>\n
The letter said the federal government had identified 1,754 \u201clikely aliens\u201d registered to vote in Orange County, although county officials had not yet reviewed the accuracy of that list by late Friday evening. It was not immediately clear if any of these people had actually received a ballot or attempted to vote.<\/p>\n
There are more than 1.9 million registered voters in Orange County, according to the latest voter registration statistics from the California secretary of state.<\/p>\n
Ballots were mailed to all registered voters at the beginning of the month, and voting is well underway, with less than two weeks left until Election Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI write to make unmistakably clear the legal implications of continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those people on the list or tabulating ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified,\u201d Essayli, a former Republican California Assemblymember, said in the letter.<\/p>\n
It goes on to say that \u201canyone who aids, abets, counsels, induces, or procures the commission of a federal offense is equally liable. If persons knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens, they risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department is not asking Orange County to adjudicate immigration status; it is asking it to temporarily set aside ballots from individuals whose eligibility is credibly in question \u2014 a standard election-administration practice implemented nationwide,\u201d Essayli said in the letter.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California secretary of state\u2019s office in a lawsuit that aimed to block them from counting the votes of roughly 20,000 people who it said are \u201clikely\u201d noncitizen voters. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week,\u00a0the Justice Department charged 28 people<\/a> from across California with illegally voting, registering to vote in federal elections, or making false statements in citizenship paperwork.<\/p>\n