[UPDATE] Justice Department sues California and Los Angeles County to hold uncounted the mail ballots of about 20,000 people it calls likely noncitizens
The suit landed Thursday, Oct. 15, 19 days before the Nov. 3 election, after California let a 48-hour DOJ review deadline pass.
The ask. The Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County election officials in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. It wants a judge to order that mail ballots sent to roughly 20,000 people on its list be set aside, not counted, until their citizenship is verified. “State-facilitated voter fraud is unacceptable in the United States of America,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. (TS: the complaint's “high confidence” label describes a name match, not proof that anyone lacks citizenship) The pushback. California officials call the demand baseless and say DOJ has never explained how it built the list.
PREVIOUSLY
On Tuesday, Oct. 13, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent California and Los Angeles County letters and a password-protected thumb drive, giving them until noon Thursday, Oct. 15, to check the citizenship of the mail voters on it and hold their ballots. The letters did not say how DOJ built the list, and Los Angeles County did not open the drive, which its registrar called not "a secure medium."
- This summer, the Department of Homeland Security claimed 190,000 noncitizens were on California's voter rolls, without saying how it counted them.