Trump administration threatens California officials if noncitizens vote in midterms
Justice department warns election officials of prosecution if they ‘knowingly tabulate ballots’ cast by noncitizens
TL;DR
- The Trump administration is threatening California election officials with criminal investigation and prosecution.
- The threat pertains to officials processing and tabulating ballots from suspected noncitizen voters.
- This is part of an ongoing dispute between the Trump administration and California.
- A federal lawsuit was filed to prevent the counting of mail-in ballots from individuals identified as 'likely' noncitizens.
- Noncitizen voting is described as extremely rare, with only a handful of cases found so far.
- The Justice Department warns that knowingly facilitating noncitizen voting is unlawful.
- The letter was addressed to Los Angeles county counsel and copied to the California secretary of state and Los Angeles county registrar.
- The lawsuit followed California officials' failure to meet a deadline to review a list of 20,000 names provided by the federal government.