UCLA study finds 42% of DOJ's alleged noncitizen voters missing from CA rolls
A legal filing reveals that nearly half of the 20,930 names flagged by the Trump administration are not currently registered in the state, while thousands of confirmed citizens appear to have been mistakenly included.
By Thomas Obasi ·
The conflict over voter eligibility in California has intensified after a legal filing revealed that more than four in ten names on the Department of Justice's list of alleged noncitizens cannot be found on the state's current voter rolls. The analysis, submitted on Saturday by two data analysts from the University of California, Los Angeles, challenges the federal government's demand that election officials separate the ballots of these individuals during the count.
The researchers examined the 20,930 names the Justice Department required local officials to treat as possible illegal voters. Their findings show that 8,880 of those names, which accounts for 42 percent of the total list, do not match anyone in California's voter file. The study also identified at least 22 confirmed U.S. citizens on the list and indicated that many more likely correspond to citizens. Applying the administration's data-matching methodology, the team estimated that nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens in the state were highly likely to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible.
The filing was cosigned by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor and an adviser to the UCLA Voting Rights Project. He stated that the expert analysis makes it clear the mandated list endangers a significant number of eligible California voters. The lawsuit was brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, along with the UCLA project. It initially targeted the Department of Homeland Security, citing past errors where federal data mistakenly included thousands of citizens in other states.
The Justice Department has defended its actions, arguing that every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen. Kiersten V. Pels, a department spokesperson, wrote in an email that the agency makes no apology for protecting those votes. The department has warned election officials of potential criminal liability if they allow noncitizens to vote and has issued subpoenas to several offices. It also urged Washington state to remove 400 names from its rolls, a move state officials there dispute.
Local and state election officials have criticized the timing of the demands, noting they received the lists with little time to conduct the necessary investigations before Election Day. Several counties reported finding numerous errors in quick checks of the data. The Justice Department objected to releasing the full list, calling the request a fishing expedition and citing sensitive information. However, a federal judge ordered the administration to share the data with plaintiffs on Friday, enabling the broader analysis released Saturday.
Bill Essayli, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, dismissed the findings on social media, calling the report bogus. President Donald Trump also reacted to the legal setbacks, claiming his Justice Department found potentially millions of fraudulent votes. He questioned why courts would reject fixing election fraud, even as a judge he nominated ruled against the administration's efforts. On Friday, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to stop sending demands to state officials, a decision the administration appealed on Saturday.
