The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles against California over the handling of alleged noncitizen voters, according to multiple news reports. The Justice Department, operating under the Trump administration, is seeking a court order to prevent California from counting mail-in ballots from approximately 20,000 voters it identifies as "likely" noncitizens until their citizenship status can be verified.
The lawsuit marks an escalation of federal pressure on state election officials regarding alleged noncitizen voting ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The Department of Homeland Security identified the 20,000 alleged noncitizens by comparing California's voter rolls to its own internal databases, according to court records. The suit names California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan as defendants.
The legal action follows a Justice Department demand issued two days prior to the lawsuit. A top DOJ official sent California a letter with a 48-hour deadline requiring state election officials to review a password-protected thumb drive containing a list of names the federal government claimed were likely noncitizens on the voter rolls. The thumb drive was accompanied by a handwritten password, which Los Angeles County officials noted was written on a sticky note. Logan said in a statement that he did not consider the thumb drive a secure device.
California state officials disputed the federal government's characterization of collaboration efforts. In a statement issued Wednesday, Secretary of State Weber said that over the summer, the Department of Homeland Security had claimed California had 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls but refused to provide the methodology or data sources when the office requested them. Weber stated that the DOJ's "relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states' protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections." Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, characterized the Trump administration's request on social media as "more dangerous nonsense from a President losing his grip on reality" and asserted that "California's elections are NOT Donald Trump's to control."
The lawsuit is part of a broader Trump administration push to increase federal involvement in election administration and the identification of noncitizen voters. The Justice Department has warned all 50 states that election officials could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly allow noncitizens to remain on voter rolls or cast ballots. The department has sued 30 states and Washington D.C. seeking access to complete voter rolls including sensitive personal data, but has lost 26 of those cases without winning any to date.
Voting rights experts and election law scholars have raised concerns about the government's approach. Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA, noted that the DOJ's request could potentially cause California to violate a federal law barring states from conducting mass purges of voter rolls within 90 days of an election. Voting rights activists have expressed concern that naturalized citizens could be wrongly flagged as noncitizens due to outdated Department of Homeland Security data.
The Trump administration has made noncitizen voting a priority issue this year despite research indicating the problem is exceptionally rare. The Justice Department has charged approximately 90 people for various types of election misconduct in 2026, including 50 alleged to have voted as noncitizens. A Reuters investigation published in July found that just 129 people had been prosecuted for noncitizen voting since the statute criminalizing it passed in 1996. More than 227 million registered voters were active during the 2024 presidential election.
