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The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of California Thursday, demanding the state set aside the ballots of some 20,000 voters it says may not be citizens.
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The lawsuit follows a 48-hour ultimatum delivered by President Donald Trump’s DOJ that the state sequester the ballots on its own or face legal action.
“The state refused to independently verify the citizenship of the people included on the list,” the complaint says. “Nor would they agree to work with the federal government to verify citizenship status before tabulating those voters’ votes.”
The state, the complaint said, is “knowingly imposing an obstacle” on the federal government’s ability to investigate voter fraud. California Democrats argue the move is a political ploy designed to suppress votes.
The lawsuit marks the latest escalation of a legal fight between President Donald Trump, who has sought more federal control over voting, and blue states like California that have successfully fought those efforts in court.
Earlier this month, a federal judge from using federal immigration data to remove voters from rolls. The judge said the government relied on a database “plagued with inaccuracies” and the DOJ was unlawfully attempted to usurp control over elections from states.
Gov. Gavin Newsom slammed the lawsuit in a statement, calling it a “sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day.”
The origins of the lawsuit
In a letter Tuesday, acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter demanded California election officials review a list of names on California’s voter rolls that the DOJ flagged as potential noncitizens. McCotter said California had 48 hours to review the list and set aside ballots of people whose citizenship couldn’t be verified or the DOJ would seek “emergency relief.”
McCotter said he was following up on a review conducted by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, whose office claimed to find up to 190,000 noncitizen voters on California’s rolls.
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The DOJ complaint lists a smaller number — “some 20,000” — that it says were identified using “voter rolls and federal data.” It asks the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California to block counting vote-by-mail ballots from those people “until the voter’s citizenship status can be determined.”
In a response to McCotter sent Thursday morning, Secretary of State Shirley Weber to meddle in California elections.
“You are demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide,” Weber wrote. “California’s election administration will continue to be governed by applicable federal and state law, not by unsubstantiated claims and outrageous demands.”
Weber also questioned the accuracy of the DHS’s claims. In Nevada, for example, DHS officials claimed 185 people were not citizens; a state review found all 185 were, in fact, eligible voters.
How were the alleged noncitizen voters identified?
In her letter, Weber said she’d asked DHS officials how they’d identified noncitizen voters and said DHS refused to provide a response in writing.
In its filings, the DOJ said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services “compares information about voter rolls with its internal data to identify potential matches between registered voters and possible noncitizens.” It said it uses unspecified third-party software to assess the reliability of its voter information.
It’s not clear what voter data USCIS is using.
California and other blue states have won legal decisions that blocked the federal government from obtaining their voter files. More than two dozen judges have blocked those efforts across different cases, according to CBS News.
In her letter, Weber argued the DOJ may be violating the ruling earlier this month, which barred the DOJ from comparing voter files to federal immigration databases.
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The Bee’s Sharon Bernstein contributed to this story.
This story was originally published October 15, 2026 at 3:18 PM.