LOS ANGELES, CA — A Los Angeles federal court hearing is set next week in the Trump administration's attempt to purge more than 20,000 "likely non-citizens" from California's voter rolls in the days before the midterm elections.
The closely watched lawsuit, United States of America v. State of California, et al., was assigned to the same judge who previously dismissed a U.S. Justice Department bid to force California to turn over its full voter registration list to the federal government.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.
Government prosecutors have sued 30 states that refused to turn voter data over, losing the majority of cases so far.
"We're not asking California to take any drastic steps other than to sequester the ballots from the suspected non-citizens," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said this week. "We believe it's at a minimum of 20,000. That's the floor."
Carter set the first hearing in the case for Oct. 30 in downtown Los Angeles.
The DOJ moved for immediate intervention Wednesday, demanding the court issue an expedited ruling on its request for a temporary restraining order as to suspected non-citizen vote-by-mail ballots.
In opposition to the DOJ's 11th-hour attempt to have election officials set aside the ballots of suspected non-eligible voters, defendants Secretary of State Shirley Weber, and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan contend they lack both the mechanisms and the legal authority to freeze mail ballots in the November election until the voters' citizenship can be verified.
Any alleged evidence suggesting that tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles County are unlawfully registered to vote is entirely "unreliable," according to the county's opposition to the TRO request.
"Voting is already underway in Los Angeles County," according to the motion. "Ballots have been mailed, returned and processed, and election officials are working toward fixed deadlines for counting and certification. Plaintiff United States of America, through the Department of Justice ... now asks this court to interrupt that work and enjoin the withholding of 20,000 registered California voters' ballots pending investigation based solely on an unreliable voter roll maintenance list."
According to Weber's office, federal officials claimed in July that California had 190,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, but when her office asked for proof of their claims, "They refused and provided California with nothing."
The Trump administration has long asserted that large numbers of non- citizens were casting ballots in California and elsewhere, although officials have never provided any proof or documentation of such sweeping fraud.
Monica Flores, an official in the L.A. County Registrar- Recorder/County Clerk's office, wrote in an affidavit accompanying the motion that the registrar "has no authority under state or federal law to withhold or set aside the ballot of a registered voter on the basis of a third party's assertion that the voter may not be a citizen, has no information beyond the voter's own attestation with which to determine citizenship, and has no lawful means of obtaining such information.
"In addition ... a substantial part of what the DOJ requests is no longer physically possible, and the remainder could not be carried out without placing the timely and accurate administration and certification of the General Election at risk."
In its request for an immediate ruling on the TRO request, federal prosecutors wrote that time was of the essence.
As the defendants "continue processing ballots that cannot later be segregated or verified for eligibility, the dilution of lawful votes accelerates in real time," according to the motion.
"This is an emergency," DOJ lawyers said. "Every minute of processing that occurs without segregating the ballots of suspected non- eligible voters causes untraceable disenfranchisement and dilution of the votes of United States citizens."
By Fred Shuster, City News Service
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