Secretary of State of California

The Trump administration has warned California election officials that processing ballots cast by suspected noncitizen voters could expose them to criminal investigation and prosecution. A letter from acting deputy attorney general Trent McCotter called noncitizen voting a federal crime and said officials who knowingly facilitate it risk being treated as aiders and abettors. The DOJ sued California after it missed a 48-hour deadline to cross-check a federal list of roughly 20,000 flagged names; federal prosecutors have since charged 28 green-card holders across California, 11 arrested, saying all appeared on that list. Secretary of State Shirley Weber called the demand unprecedented and said officials provided too little information to verify names. Governor Newsom calls the suit voter suppression; the dispute looms over competitive California House races in the midterms.

The Department of Justice escalated its dispute with California over a list of voters flagged as possible noncitizens, filing an emergency lawsuit Oct. 15 in federal court in the Central District of California after state officials missed a roughly 48-hour deadline set by Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to review the names. DOJ had sent Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan and Secretary of State Shirley Weber a password-protected thumb drive naming more than 20,000 "likely noncitizens," identified through a multiagency USCIS and Homeland Security Investigations review of state voter and federal citizenship data. The 15-page complaint accuses California of violating the Constitution's supremacy clause by knowingly sending and counting mail ballots from likely noncitizens, and asks the court to order the state to set aside such ballots until citizenship is verified. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the alleged practice "state-facilitated voter fraud."

Logan's office declined to open the drive, citing data privacy protocols, while Weber argued federal officials provided insufficient evidence. Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a "sad, desperate attempt" by President Trump to suppress California voters weeks before Election Day. The suit is the administration's first direct attempt to block vote-counting, following a broader push including a blocked citizenship-verification mandate, a mail-voting executive order partly struck down by the Supreme Court, and roughly 30 similar voter-roll suits against other states with limited success. Senate Democrats have demanded oversight briefings on the administration's election-interference efforts.

Turmoil in Shasta County, California's elections office has intensified after registrar Clint Curtis sealed a room containing primary ballots with locks and duct tape, claiming without evidence they seemed suspicious. County leaders publicly condemned Curtis and asked the FBI, California's attorney general and secretary of state to investigate his conduct, while Curtis separately said he too had asked the FBI to look into the matter. The county's Board of Supervisors previously censured Curtis over treatment of staff, and internal investigations found he threatened employees and misused work time on his own campaign.

Curtis, a longtime election denier with no prior election administration experience, drew national attention for seeking to hire Tina Peters, a convicted former Colorado clerk tied to a 2021 voting-machine breach, as a consultant. California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom's office are reviewing whether such a hire would violate state law. The dispute echoes a separate case in Riverside County, where a sheriff's seizure of ballots is being challenged before the California Supreme Court, raising broader questions about election security and oversight ahead of the midterms.