DOJ Gives California 48 Hours on Noncitizen Ballots. Honest Weights Cut Both Ways.

The Justice Department has given California 48 hours to check a federal list of people it believes are noncitizens who were mailed ballots for the Nov. 3 election, and it is threatening to go to court if the state does not act.

The demand came in a letter dated Oct. 13 from acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. McCotter wrote that the department had given the Los Angeles County registrar "a password-protected thumb drive with a list of names of people the Federal Government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot."

What the letter asks

The request is specific. California is asked to review the list within 48 hours. For anyone whose citizenship the state cannot confirm, election officials are to "segregate—not cancel" their mail ballots. Anyone on the list who has not been sent a ballot should not get one until citizenship is confirmed, and returned ballots should not be verified or counted until it is determined.

The letter sets a deadline of noon Eastern on Oct. 15. If California cannot comply, McCotter wrote, "the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief." Reuters, which first reported the letter, called it an escalation of the administration's efforts to pressure states over noncitizen voting.

"This should not be controversial, as the criminal statute is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections," a Justice Department spokesperson said, NBC News reported. The department says it is asking California to set ballots aside, not to change its voter list. As of Wednesday evening, no lawsuit had been filed.

This did not come out of nowhere. In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin wrote to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered in those states, the Associated Press reported. The Los Angeles Times reported Mullin suggested California alone might have more than 190,000.

California mails a ballot to every registered voter. Shown: a 2020 Santa Clara County I Voted sticker on a mail ballot. Photo: Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, Public domain.

California pushes back

Weber was skeptical in July. "I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official," she said in response to the July claim, according to the AP.

Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan told the Los Angeles Times his office had not opened the thumb drive because state officials "do not consider the device a secure medium." He said his office is reviewing the letter with Weber and Attorney General Rob Bonta. Experts quoted by the Times called the demand highly questionable at a time when votes are already being cast. In a statement Wednesday, Logan said any action to remove a voter "must be based on verifiable information, not assertions of unconfirmed data matching," NBC reported.

Bonta went further. At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, he called the letter another example of Trump spreading "absolutely false conspiracy theories that there is widespread voter fraud when there is not," ABC7 Los Angeles reported. "Will we be engaging in conspiracy theories? We will not," he said. He did not say how the secretary of state's office would answer the department. Weber did not respond to NBC's request for comment.

Both things are true

Conservatives should say the first thing plainly. Federal law makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. A vote cast illegally cancels a vote cast lawfully by a citizen. California mails a ballot to every registered voter, so any error on the rolls turns into a ballot in someone's mailbox. Wanting that checked is not paranoia. It is the basic job of government.

The second thing matters just as much. The way you check is part of the justice. A list on a thumb drive, delivered three weeks before Election Day, built from federal databases that a lawsuit filed last month challenges, is not proof that anyone broke the law. The Times reported the UCLA Voting Rights Project sued last month over the administration's use of what it calls unproven federal databases. If the list is right, show the work and let officials verify it. If it is wrong, eligible citizens could see their ballots set aside in the final weeks of an election.

The letter itself says segregate, not cancel. That is a better instinct than a purge. But "segregate" still means a citizen's ballot sits in a separate pile until someone gets around to clearing it. That burden should fall on the government making the accusation, not on the voter.

"A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight," Proverbs 11:1 says. Honest weights cut both ways. They mean no noncitizen votes, and they mean no citizen loses a vote on the strength of a database match nobody has checked.

Dock Line has argued before that conservatives should mind the principle even when the target is a political opponent. California's leaders are no friends of this administration. That is all the more reason for the Justice Department to make its case with evidence a court would accept, because sooner or later it will have to.

Watch Thursday's noon deadline. If California does not comply, expect the fight to move to a federal courtroom fast.

Photos: Justice Department building by APK via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped and resized; mail ballot sticker by the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, public domain.