Update: California Attorney General Asks Federal Court to Deny DOJ Bid to Set Aside 20,000 Ballots
LOS ANGELES, California — California Attorney General Rob Bonta on October 20 filed a court response in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, in Los Angeles County, California, asking a federal judge to deny the U.S. Department of Justice's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. The Justice Department wants California to set aside and not count mail ballots from about 20,000 registrants it describes as likely noncitizens. According to CalMatters, the filing is California's formal response to the lawsuit the Justice Department filed against the state last week, submitted a day after federal prosecutors announced charges against 28 green card holders on Monday.
In the filing, Bonta called the Justice Department's lawsuit one that 'borders on the absurd,' writing that at best it is a reckless political stunt and at worst it threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Californians in this election. The filing said the federal government's broad voter-fraud allegations have repeatedly crumbled under scrutiny, quoted a recent court noting that federal citizenship records are 'known to be unreliable,' and said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not provided the Secretary of State's office with evidence or documentation supporting its assertions.
The filing cited figures including these: all 28 people charged on Monday appear on the 20,000-name list, but they amount to about 0.0001 percent of California's 23 million registered voters; prosecutors allege 22 of the 28 voted in at least one election, including as recently as the June primary, five only registered, and one cast a provisional ballot in 2020. Bonta also noted the Trump administration has lost 26 lawsuits seeking unredacted voter rolls from states. In declarations filed Tuesday, Los Angeles County election officials said a preliminary analysis of a sampling of 200 voters from the federal thumb drive showed many appear to be citizens, and most had not voted and were not sent ballots. The filing also said state officials have been complying with federal grand jury subpoenas seeking information on about 300 people.
The filing also questioned the accuracy of the federal list by pointing to Nevada: DHS claimed nearly 16,000 noncitizens were on Nevada's rolls but sent the state only 185 names, and Nevada officials confirmed all 185 were U.S. citizens. In July, federal authorities told California there could be as many as 190,000 noncitizen voters in the state; California's secretary of state asked for a detailed accounting of that figure, and the administration would not put it in writing.
The Justice Department's position was reported in earlier coverage: Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said Monday the 20,000 figure was 'just the floor' and likely to grow, while acknowledging it could be an overcount and that some names may turn out to be citizens; he said the list was built by cross-referencing California's public voter rolls with other government databases and public information. In its own lawsuit, the department said it is 'not practicable or feasible' for the federal government to dig deeper into the thousands of flagged names before the 2026 election concludes. Governor Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that credible voter-fraud allegations should be taken seriously and investigated, but questioned the timing in the middle of voting. As of the CalMatters report, the Justice Department had not responded to California's filing, and no hearing date had been announced.
The timeline: on October 13 the Justice Department wrote to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and sent Los Angeles County election officials a thumb drive with the list, demanding a review within 48 hours; California refused, the department sued two days later, and on October 19 it moved for the emergency order while announcing the charges. With the November 3 midterm elections about two weeks away, the case is seen as a test of whether the federal government can pause a state's vote count based on a list it acknowledges may be inaccurate, in an area where the U.S. Constitution gives states primary authority over elections.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国司法部（DOJ）总部大楼（资料图）。Tony Webster 摄，CC BY 2.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。Photo: U.S. Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C. (file photo). By Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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