By David Brunnstrom<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Less than two weeks before US midterm elections, the Department of Justice has warned election officials across California they could be targets of federal “scrutiny” if they refuse \u200cto help identify suspected noncitizens on voter rolls and set aside their mail ballots pending citizenship checks.<\/p>\n
According to \u200cletters dated Friday, local officials were given 48 hours to help determine the citizenship status of individuals on federal government lists. The Justice Department shared \u200bwith Reuters texts of six of the letters on Saturday, which were signed by Bilal Essayli, first assistant US attorney for the Central District of California.<\/p>\n
He warned counties that continuing to process ballots from individuals on the list without verifying citizenship status risked “significant federal scrutiny and legal exposure.”<\/p>\n
Officials who knowingly counted ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens risked becoming “aiders \u200cand abettors to a federal crime,” Essayli wrote.<\/p>\n
Each \u2060letter includes local statistics drawn from a previously distributed list of 20,000 people who the Justice Department alleges are noncitizens registered to vote.<\/p>\n
For those whose “citizenship status cannot be confirmed, we request that you immediately \u2060instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate \u2014 not cancel \u2014 those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” Essayli wrote.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department said it identified 1,754 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in Orange County, 1,355 in Riverside County, 1,133 in San \u200bBernardino \u200bCounty, 334 in Ventura County, 180 in Santa Barbara County and \u200b63 in San Luis Obispo County.<\/p>\n
Another letter separately shared \u200cby Contra Costa County listed “407 likely aliens” registered.<\/p>\n
“This letter came to us 11 days before Election Day with an unenforceable 48-hour deadline,” said Dawn Kruger, a spokesperson for Contra Costa County’s Elections Department, adding: “Our office is conducting this election in accordance with federal and state laws and that is what we will continue to do.”<\/p>\n
Versions of the letters were sent to all 58 California counties, according to the New York Times.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to the midterms, the Justice Department \u200chas ramped up prosecutions of people accused of illegally voting while not \u200bholding US citizenship.<\/p>\n
The White House has also pushed federal agencies to \u200baccelerate their review of at least 47 state voter \u200brolls obtained by the Department of Homeland Security, according to an internal email seen by \u200cReuters.<\/p>\n
On October 16, the Justice Department warned Los Angeles \u200bCounty and California election officials \u200bthey could be liable as abettors of a federal crime if they count mail ballots returned by more than 20,000 people the Trump administration says are probably noncitizens.<\/p>\n
California officials have rejected the moves, saying the federal government \u200bhas not provided sufficient information about how \u200cit identified the alleged noncitizens.<\/p>\n
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has accused the administration of attempting \u200bto unlawfully access protected voter data and purge voter rolls, saying such efforts undermine confidence in elections.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sergio Non and Nia Williams)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Less than two weeks before US midterm elections, the Department…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-506967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506967","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=506967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}