By admin 
Federal prosecutors appointed by President Donald Trump have spent the weeks leading up to the election claiming that California’s voter rolls are filled with thousands of noncitizen voters — claims that have failed to materialize in states like Nevada, Iowa and Michigan.
Read more DOJ threatens to prosecute California election officials. Experts call it ‘absurd’
On Friday, federal prosecutors added a new threat: They may seek to prosecute election officials if they “knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens,” according to a letter sent to California’s top elections officer signed by acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Trent McCotter.
McCotter and Bill Essayli, acting first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, reiterated the threat at a news conference Monday, when the DOJ announced charges against 28 alleged noncitizens for voting-related crimes.
Elections and legal experts say any attempt to prosecute election officials would face long odds in court. They argue the letter and arrests, sent less than three weeks before Election Day, are designed to intimidate officials and voters.
“It would be ludicrous for the feds to actually charge election officials, and if they did, the charges wouldn’t stick, for the simple reason that the election officials aren’t committing crimes,” said Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School, in an email. “The good news is that election officials know this is an absurd form of bullying — and also know how to stand up to bullies.”
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A thin legal case
The threat of prosecutions followed DOJ demands that California set aside the ballots of 20,000 voters it determined to be noncitizens. Last week, McCotter sent a letter and a password-protected thumb drive with a list of names to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, demanding they begin sequestering mail-in ballots sent to people on the DOJ list within 48 hours. When Weber refused — saying the DOJ had refused to share its methodology and waited until the eleventh hour to act — the DOJ sued.
The Friday letter threatening prosecutions was signed exclusively by Trump’s DOJ political appointees rather than career attorneys. That’s one indication the threat isn’t well supported by the law, according to Samantha Trepel, a former DOJ attorney who now serves as rule of law program director at the nonpartisan States United Democracy Project. In a post on the law news site Just Security, Trepel noted that federal prosecutors would have to prove election officials intentionally committed a crime.
“The election officials here decided to follow longstanding state and federal law rather than ceding to unprecedented demands unsupported by the requested evidence,” Trepel said. “That decision demonstrates adherence to the law — not criminal intent.”
Former DOJ attorney David Becker, who now leads the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, flatly rejected the notion that the DOJ would act on its letter.
“There is no path to prosecution,” he said.
A spokesperson for the DOJ did not immediately respond to the request for a comment.
Registrars say citizenship checks are not their job
Local election officials rely on county attorneys for legal support. Becker’s Election Official Legal Defense Network also connects election officials with pro bono attorneys if they need added assistance.
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Becker said the California election officials he’d spoken to were “completely unbowed by this.”
Interim Solano County Registrar John Gardner said he was unaware of McCotter’s threat to prosecute election officials and said it didn’t change anything about how he did his job.
“Our big message is, business as usual,” Gardner said.
One of the 28 people facing federal charges, Vacaville resident Giezell Viduya Adawag, is accused of registering and voting in the 2024 elections despite not being a citizen. According to the DOJ’s criminal complaint, Adawag acknowledged she may have voted and said she “didn’t know any better.”
Gardner said the county had registered Adawag and allowed her to cast a provisional ballot, as it is legally required to do. He said it is up to the Secretary of State’s Office to check a voter’s eligibility to cast ballots, using data from state agencies like the DMV.
State and local officials don’t have a single database to determine a voters’ citizenship status. Registration forms require applicants to attest under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens, effectively putting the onus on the voter rather than election officials.
Gardner said he was not worried about facing prosecution.
“Looking at the data we have on file, I think we acted appropriately,” he said.
El Dorado County spokesperson Carla Hass said the county has no tools to verify a voter’s citizenship.
“Our county elections officials will never knowingly facilitate noncitizen voting because we have no way to verify the citizenship of a voter,” Hass said in an email. “This is a state-level issue.”
Former Shasta County Registrar Cathy Darling Allen said it was unfortunate that “underresourced, underpaid, underappreciated” election officials woke up to threats of prosecution last weekend rather than praise.
She said elections offices were often meticulous about getting details right, and recounted how her office used to read ballot titles backwards, word by word, to make sure they were printed correctly.
“Election officials are busy doing their work,” she said.
This story was originally published October 22, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline “DOJ threatens to prosecute California election officials. Experts call it ‘absurd’.”
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