DOJ expands push to halt counting of ballots cast by suspected noncitizens Critics say the Justice Department's effort risks disenfranchising legitimate voters.

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday in the Trump administration's push to stop ballots cast by 20,000 suspected noncitizens from being counted in California, as critics warn the last-minute effort risks disenfranchising legitimate voters and delaying the certification of results.

As the legal battle escalates, the Justice Department separately urged Washington state this week to sequester ballots from more than 400 potential noncitizens.


 Eligible citizens are not affected. We asked counties to set aside these ballots, not cancel them, until citizenship is confirmed,  said DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels.

California officials have argued that the demand comes too close to Election Day. They have also raised serious doubts about the accuracy of the federal government's list.

 There's ample reason to doubt the accuracy of that list,  echoed Stephen Richer, a legal fellow at the Cato Institute.  Just because somebody's not a confirmed citizen in those federal databases does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that the person is not a citizen. 

Richer said that previous audits and investigations have found that noncitizen voting is uncommon, but not nonexistent.

The DOJ said Tuesday that it has charged 133 noncitizens across 21 states with illegal voting and registration offenses in the past eight weeks. Since the beginning of the second Trump administration, 177 people have been charged with voting fraud-related offenses.

Richer said those cases are not widespread enough to sway the outcome of an election.

 That number represents a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the number of registered voters,  Richer said.  That's against over 150 million Americans voting in just the November 2020 election alone. 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) said that the Trump administration's emphasis on the issue is designed to undermine confidence in the election results.

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