Orange County election officials are waiting to hear back from the U.S. Department of Justice on how to proceed with a federal prosecutor\u2019s request to help to determine the citizenship status of 1,754 people.<\/p>\n
Bob Page, Orange County Registrar of Voters, said Monday, Oct. 26, that neither his office nor Orange County\u2019s office of county counsel has heard back from the DOJ regarding a letter and a USB drive it sent late Friday to Orange County Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen.<\/p>\n
The DOJ, on Friday, Oct. 23, hand-delivered a letter to Nguyen and asked for help determining the citizenship status of 1,754 people it had identified as \u201clikely aliens\u201d within 48 hours. Nguyen also received a USB drive containing a list of the 1,754 people in question.<\/p>\n
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
But in a letter Saturday, Orange County counsel told Essayli that the Justice Department \u201cmistakenly sent\u201d the letter and the USB drive \u2014 which \u201cmay contain confidential, sensitive, or otherwise protected information\u201d \u2014 to Nguyen, since the Page\u2019s office is responsible for conducting elections and maintaining voter registration records.<\/p>\n
County counsel said in its letter that Nguyen retained the USB drive \u201cin a secure manner\u201d pending DOJ instructions, asking whether a Justice Department official should retrieve it in person or if it should be sent back to DOJ by mail.<\/p>\n
Page, on Monday, said the Justice Department had so far not responded to county counsel seeking guidance about how to handle custody of the letter or the USB drive, or how Page\u2019s office should proceed given that the 48-hour timeline had passed.<\/p>\n
Orange County officials have not formulated a specific approach in terms of responding to the DOJ\u2019s letter, its 48-hour timeline, whether to comply or how to do so, Page said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a deadline that\u2019s not enforceable; it\u2019s just a deadline they\u2019re saying in their letter,\u201d he said. \u201cBottom line is, we don\u2019t want non-citizens to be voting in this election, but at this point we don\u2019t know how reliable their list for Orange County is. We haven\u2019t had a chance to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors sent similar letters to county registrars across California on Friday. It\u2019s 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 effort to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the Nov. 3 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 an email sent to Page on Saturday, the California secretary of state\u2019s office said that California\u2019s voter registration and tabulation processes \u201care entirely consistent with federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur office\u2019s position, as shared with DOJ, is that agreeing to the DOJ\u2019s demands to segregate the ballots of individuals on the list and not process them, based solely on a list of names unsupported by evidence, would violate both federal and state election law,\u201d the secretary of state\u2019s office said. \u201cCalifornia\u2019s election administration is fully compliant with federal election law and will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut simply, California will not disenfranchise thousands of its voters based solely upon unsupported and likely inaccurate claims about \u2018suspected\u2019 non-citizens.\u201d<\/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.\u00a0Ballots were mailed to all registered voters at the beginning of the month, and voting is well underway for the election on Tuesday, Nov. 3.<\/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.<\/p>\n
A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday, the outcome of which \u2014 in addition to a formal response from the Justice Department to the county counsel\u2019s letter \u2014 will help determine Orange County\u2019s approach in terms of responding to the DOJ\u2019s request, Page said.<\/p>\n
Last week, the 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. And last month, the Orange County registrar of voters received three subpoenas seeking voter records<\/a> for 20 people, according to documents provided to The Orange County Register.<\/p>\n \u201cWe complied with that court order and provided the information by the deadline,\u201d Page said. \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between having a court order and a letter that requests and interprets the law in a new way that has never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n The Justice Department requested voter records from January 2024 to present, including registration information, addresses, history and methods of voting, and the registrants\u2019 claims about their citizenship status. The information was sought in connection with \u201can official criminal investigation\u201d conducted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a letter from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Wheat said.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s letter from Essayli asked elections officials to \u201ccommit to working with DOJ and DHS to identify who on the accompanying list is a citizen and who is not. That means sending us the nonpublic information associated with each suspected alien\u2019s registration,\u201d including voter applications, a driver\u2019s license or state ID number.<\/p>\n