Follow-Up: Justice Department Urges Judge to Consider Contempt Over Voter List Analysis Finding Over 40% Not in California Voter File
Washington — The U.S. Department of Justice on Sunday, November 1, defended the accuracy of its list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in California and suggested that a federal judge consider whether the immigrant rights group Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and its lawyers should face contempt charges after they published an analysis of the names. The filing came two days before the November 3 midterm elections.
The dispute stems from an order issued on Friday, October 30, by U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, who sits in Washington, D.C. Boasberg allowed CHIRLA access to federal government data on the 20,000 people the Trump administration alleges are noncitizen voters in California, but ordered the plaintiffs not to disclose any names on the list and to use the data only for their arguments about why they have legal standing to challenge the Trump administration's use of it.
On Saturday, October 31, attorneys for the immigrant rights group filed court papers revealing that their analysis found more than 40 percent of the people on the list do not appear in California's voter file. The analysis also identified 22 people on the list who were likely naturalized U.S. citizens, while saying that thousands more U.S. citizens appeared to be on it as well.
The Justice Department said in its Sunday filing that the analysis had nothing to do with the group's legal standing and therefore violated Boasberg's order. "The report's political grandstanding about alleged inaccuracies that purportedly impact California voters generally, or comparisons between the government's list and the full 'California voter file,' has no relevance to whether the particular plaintiffs in this case have standing," it said. The filing also suggested Boasberg refer the matter to the Justice Department for investigation for possible criminal contempt of court.
Alberto Lammers, a spokesman for the University of California, Los Angeles Voting Rights Project, which filed the case and did the data analysis for CHIRLA, said in an emailed statement: "Plaintiffs' counsel and their experts fully complied with the Court's orders."
In a separate case, the Justice Department on Sunday also appealed a decision from Friday night by U.S. District Court Judge Trina L. Thompson. The ruling by the San Francisco-based judge barred the department from demanding that election offices remove possible noncitizens from voter rolls, separate their ballots or threaten legal action. The Justice Department has noted that Thompson ruled before the federal government was able to file its initial arguments. Thompson scheduled a Monday, November 2, hearing on the appeal.
The California list dispute is one of many cases the Trump administration has lost in its battle over its lists of alleged noncitizen voters. A federal judge in California rejected its demand that election officials be forced to separate ballots cast by those voters, writing that such last-minute orders could "wreak havoc" on the state's election, and two appellate judges agreed. California election officials contend the list is riddled with errors and say they have no way to do the painstaking work required by law to remove voters from the rolls in the days before the election. The administration has said its list was carefully compiled from the state's own voter registration data and compared to federal citizenship records. The Justice Department has issued a series of subpoenas for election offices in California and warned election officials who knowingly let noncitizens vote that they could face criminal charges.
Related: Noncitizen Voter Lists Expand to Five States as Courts Twice Decline to Block California Ballots
(According to an Associated Press report on November 1)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国司法部罗伯特·肯尼迪大楼全景（资料图）。APK 摄，CC BY 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building (file photo). Photo by APK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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- 2026-11-02Follow-Up: Justice Department Urges Judge to Consider Contempt Over Voter List Analysis Finding Over 40% Not in California Voter FileThis story
