DOJ Gives California Counties 48 Hours to Flag Suspected Noncitizen Ballots

DOJ Gives California Counties 48 Hours to Flag Suspected Noncitizen Ballots

Letters Land in 57 Counties Days Before the Election

The U.S. Justice Department sent letters on Friday to 57 of California's 58 counties, ordering local election officials to help identify suspected noncitizens on the voter rolls and set aside their mail-in ballots. Los Angeles County, which received a similar letter last week, was the only county not covered this time. NBC News obtained the letter and first reported its contents, with CBS News, CNN, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times following with their own accounts of what officials called an escalation of federal intervention in California's elections.

Cooperate in 48 Hours or Risk Criminal Charges

Signed by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli of the Los Angeles office, the letter asks each county to commit within 48 hours to working with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security "to identify who on the accompanying list is a citizen and who is not." Counties are asked to hand over personal data on each flagged voter, including Social Security numbers, ID information and copies of registration forms. The letter warns that any election official who knowingly counts a noncitizen's ballot opens himself to criminal liability. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the request was a way to "ensure the most secure election in California history."

California's Universal Mail Voting Is the Target

The department's stated concern is California's practice of mailing a ballot to every active registered voter: if noncitizens appear on the rolls, they could receive and return ballots, even though only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections. In August, Homeland Security said comparing voter-registration records with federal immigration data had turned up 250,000 people it believed were noncitizens registered to vote across four states: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. Earlier this month the Justice Department sued Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State's office seeking to block the counting of more than 20,000 ballots from voters it describes as likely noncitizens, and it has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to restrict counting before the trial court rules.

County Lists Range From 81 Names to 1,133

Each county's letter carries a slice of the roughly 20,000 flagged voters statewide. The San Bernardino County version obtained by NBC News lists 1,133 "possible aliens." Tricia Webber, the Santa Cruz County clerk and president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said two people with Justice Department credentials walked into her office on Friday and handed her a manila envelope demanding she help determine the citizenship of 81 people in her county within 48 hours. The Secretary of State reported 23,164,977 registered voters as of Sept. 4, 2026, which would make the 20,000 flagged names less than one-tenth of one percent of the rolls.

Local Officials Call It Intimidation Twelve Days Out

Pushback was swift. Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's top election official, emailed fellow administrators condemning the letter as a distortion of the facts and a "posture of intimidation" twelve days before the election, calling the 48-hour deadline unenforceable and noting the department was demanding individual-level voter data it had previously obtained only through subpoenas. Senator Alex Padilla of California said the administration had produced no evidence of large-scale fraud and had admitted its data was inaccurate and unreliable, adding that no number of lawsuits or threats gave it authority to interfere in state elections. The AP noted that documented cases of noncitizen voting are rare and have never been shown to affect an election outcome.

A Tuesday Hearing Will Shape What Happens Next

The earlier lawsuit against Los Angeles County and the Secretary of State is scheduled for a hearing on Tuesday, when a judge will weigh whether the disputed 20,000-plus ballots may be counted. The new letters' 48-hour window falls over the weekend, and no county has publicly committed to comply; Webber said most counties are sitting down with counsel to go through the demands line by line. With early and mail voting already underway, the standoff over voter rolls, mail ballots and who decides which votes count is heading into its decisive final days.