DOJ is suing to keep about 20,000 flagged ballots uncounted. In a Tuesday, Oct. 20 affidavit, LA County official Monica Flores said staff checked 200 registrations from the list. Of those, 112 were canceled or inactive, so no ballot went out; 71.2% had never voted. Where a birthplace was reported, 38.9% showed U.S. birth, "strong evidence of citizenship." Only about 7,000 names have an LA address.
How we got here
- Sep. 22–30 — A federal grand jury subpoenaed LA County election officials for records on dozens of suspected noncitizens, while DHS's national voter-fraud hunt had made 160 arrests.
- Oct. 15 — DOJ ordered California to check the citizenship of an undisclosed list of mail voters, then sued the state and LA County to keep about 20,000 ballots uncounted.
- Oct. 17 — DOJ warned officials that counting the flagged ballots could make them "aiders and abettors" open to federal prosecution.
- Oct. 18 — Trump said LA officials "will all go to jail" if they count them; Registrar Dean Logan said the fight belongs in court.
- Oct. 19 — DOJ charged 28 green-card holders from the list with voting crimes and arrested 11, saying 21 actually cast ballots.
What the filings add
- The next list: a USCIS official swore on Monday, Oct. 19 that DHS has a "separate batch of more than 17,000" California voter records "potentially tied to noncitizens" (LA Times).
- The range: DOJ calls the 20,000 its "floor" of high-confidence cases; DHS put the "ceiling" at 190,832 in July.
- The scale: 28 people charged so far, in a state with 23 million voters. In Nevada, all 185 voters the administration questioned turned out to be citizens, a state review found.