SACRAMENTO, California — The U.S. Department of Justice has directed California election officials to review voter rolls and segregate ballots from people it says may be ineligible to vote, according to Reuters reporting cited by USA Today.
In letters to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter asked officials to review a list of people the department believes are likely noncitizens who were sent vote-by-mail ballots, according to USA Today. The department gave officials 48 hours and warned it could seek legal action.
For voters on the list whose citizenship cannot be verified immediately, the department asked that ballots be segregated and not counted until status is confirmed, according to USA Today.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta pushed back at a news conference on Wednesday, calling the effort an attempt to intimidate voters, according to Fox News. Senator Adam Schiff also criticized the directive, according to USA Today.
A Justice Department spokesperson said thousands of potential foreign nationals ineligible to vote had been identified on California rolls statewide, according to Fox News. That figure is a department claim and has not been independently verified in the reporting.
The dispute comes less than three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, with a federal deadline reported as noon Eastern on October 15.
