Santa Clara County Rejects DOJ Demand for 902 Voters' Confidential Records and Refuses to Segregate Their Ballots
In Santa Clara County, California, the county government wrote to the U.S. Department of Justice on October 26 refusing to hand over the unredacted, confidential registration records of 902 voters the department alleges are noncitizens, and stating plainly that the county Registrar of Voters will not segregate or refuse those voters' ballots as the department directed. The Justice Department's notice had arrived on October 23.
'Your letter cites no statutory or other legal authority,' County Counsel Tony LoPresti wrote. 'The ROV will not do so.' County Executive James R. Williams wrote separately to U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian, noting that voter registration and election administration rest with state and local governments under the Constitution.
Board of Supervisors President Otto Lee called the demand a 'fishing expedition.' The Justice Department says its list was built from third-party commercial data and the federal SAVE system. The county pointed to a Los Angeles County sample of the same data: fewer than half were active registrations, more than 40 percent had been canceled, about three quarters had never voted, and more than a third of those with birthplace information were in fact born in the United States.
Santa Clara County serves about 1.9 million residents. The Ninth Circuit held an expedited hearing on the dispute on October 25, at which two judges expressed skepticism about the department's position. The county said it will continue to protect the confidentiality of voter registration records as the law requires.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：硅谷全景，远处为圣何塞市中心（资料图）。来源：GSM 城市站图片库 / Silicon Valley panorama with downtown San Jose in the distance (file photo). Source: GSM city-station image library.
