By Safiyah Riddle and Rebecca Boon/Associated Press
This story was updated Tuesday to include additional information from the Contra Costa County clerk-recorder.
Contra Costa County clerk-recorder Kristin Connelly told Richmondside that the federal government has ordered her office to set aside 400 general election ballots that it says are fraudulent. The county is among dozens statewide facing such orders.
A district court in Los Angeles is set to hear the state’s appeal of this request, and Connelly said she has “no confidence” in the accuracy of the list of supposed noncitizen voters and that “to comply with the demand “would violate state and federal election law.”
“Our staff is continuing to administer this election according to all state and federal election laws. I could not be more proud of our team,” Connelly said as she encouraged everyone to continue voting.
Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Contra Costa County registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.
Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office in a lawsuit that aimed to block them from counting the votes of roughly 20,000 people who are “likely” noncitizen voters. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday.
Now, according to the LA County registrar’s office, at least 18 counties statewide, including Contra Costa County, have received similar letters. They have been given 48 hours to provide identifying information corresponding with ballots that the federal government believes were sent to noncitizens illegally registered to vote. The letter requests that county officials also sequester any ballots where citizenship cannot be verified.
“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.
Connelly told the Los Angeles Times last week she was among those who received a letter. She said she had not yet responded as of late Friday, but was in contact with her county counsel and “colleagues around the state who received similar letters today.”
“The nonpartisan Contra Costa County Elections Division administers elections according to all state and federal election laws, as well as the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of California. Our work is observable,” Connelly said. “This threat is not helpful and is intended to intimidate.”
The letter she received, from U.S. Atty. Craig Missakian, was full of threats of criminal punishment for tabulating votes from individuals whom the county is “on actual notice” may not be U.S. citizens.
Census data shows that about 26% of the county’s 1.1 million residents are foreign-born immigrants, in line with the rest of the state but nearly double the average nationally. There are more than 729,000 registered voters in the county.
The Justice Department is asking counties to send information about the voters it suspects are noncitizens including social security numbers, identification information, a copy of their registration and more.
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“This threat is not helpful and is intended to intimidate.”
— Kristin Connelly, Contra Costa clerk-recorder
That information can help the government and state quickly assess each person suspected of illegally registering to vote, said the letter sent to San Bernardino County voting officials.
California’s secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar have opposed the federal government’s demands. In legal filings, lawyers for California say the request threatens to delay the certification of the vote and undermine the legitimacy of the November midterms. They have also argued that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that their demands risk disenfranchisement of citizens.
Voting is underway in California, with the state’s more than 23 million registered voters receiving ballots in the mail earlier this month. The state said in legal filings that more than 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.
Federal judges refuse to rule on DOJ’s demand
A panel of federal appellate judges on Sunday questioned the timing, constitutionality and authority of the Justice Department’s demand, and declined to make a ruling on Monday.
Monday’s decision sets the federal government and state officials up for another legal showdown Tuesday before a federal district judge. That gives the federal government a very short window to compel California to sequester votes before the Nov. 3 elections. The Republican administration sued election officials in the heavily Democratic state in mid-October, accusing them of failing to meet a 48-hour deadline to review a list of 20,000 people it alleged were likely noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls.
During the rare weekend arguments, two of the three judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared skeptical of Trump’s lawsuit.
The administration asked a federal judge to require the state to withhold counting those ballots until the voters’ immigration status could be verified. The district judge scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, days after the case was assigned, but the federal government appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking an expedited decision.
Justice Department attorney Matthew Donnelly told the panel that California is causing irreparable harm “by allowing noncitizens to vote in violation of their own state laws. The damage is irreversible and irrevocable.”
Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, questioned whether the appellate court even has jurisdiction to hear the case before a ruling by the lower court.
Donnelly argued that the schedule set by the lower court judge was too slow and effectively a denial of the government’s request, as state elections officials process thousands of mail ballots every day.
Judge Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by former President Joe Biden, questioned whether the federal government was violating the Tenth Amendment, essentially commandeering the state to enforce a federal law that makes it a misdemeanor for a noncitizen to vote.
The federal government is simply asking California to enforce its own law, which also bans noncitizens from voting, Donnelly said. He argued the state’s refusal to comply with the federal request to set aside the ballots for review was “frustrating the purpose” of the federal law against noncitizen voting.
The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to set the time, place and manner of congressional elections, Bennett said. The executive branch may be “unhappy with what they’re doing, and doesn’t like the manner,” Bennett said, but under the Election Clause the state has the right to determine those issues — including how it sorts out any noncitizen voters.
Attorney Seth Waxman, representing Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan, said the federal government’s list was unreliable and that segregating the ballots for a review process would effectively disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.
Even if election staffers spent just three minutes checking each of the expected 2.75 million mail ballots against the government’s list, the process would take 140,000 man-hours, Waxman said — or about 16 years of working time.
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“We just dispute the premise that noncitizens are voting.”
— Sam Siegel, representing California Secretary of State Shirley Weber
Waxman cited a review of 200 records from the Trump administration’s list conducted by Los Angeles County staffers. Assistant Registrar-Recorder Monica Flores said in a court filing that the sample included canceled or inactive registrations, individuals with no voting history and voters who appeared to have been born in the United States, which the filing notes “is strong evidence of citizenship.”
If the administration disagrees with how California runs its elections, it can ask Congress to change that process, said attorney Sam Siegel, representing California Secretary of State Shirley Weber.
The federal government has provided no credible evidence to support its suspicions, said Siegel.
“It has no basis in law or in fact,” he told the panel. “We just dispute the premise that noncitizens are voting.”
But Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, said everyone has an interest in ensuring that only eligible citizens vote. He suggested that granting the administration’s request for an emergency order could provide clarity.
“Without an injunction, you will never know” if that is happening, Bumatay told Siegel.
Bennett said the panel would try to issue a ruling as quickly as possible.
County, district attorney and sheriff promise ‘safe’ voting experience
Friday’s letters came on the heels of statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork. Those charges could lead to years in prison.
In light of the tensions around voting, on Oct. 20 the Contra Costa’s clerk-recorder’s office issued a press release in tandem with Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton and the sheriff’s office, stating they are “standing together to ensure every voter can cast a ballot safely and with confidence.”
It notes that California has “long led the nation in protecting the right to vote,” citing the 2024 Peace Act (AB 2642) that established protections for voters and election workers in all 58 counties by “explicitly prohibiting intimidation and threats at the polls.”
New laws signed by Gov. Newsom in September make it a felony to tamper with ballots, election records, or voting equipment, guard voters against deepfakes and deception, and expand access to the ballot box.
“For Contra Costa County voters, that means every ballot, whether cast at a polling place, dropped in a drop box, or returned by mail, is protected from the moment it’s cast until the final count,” the county said.
Richmondside Editor-in-Chief Kari Hulac and freelance reporter David Mills contributed to this report.
