With midterm elections just weeks away, a federal-state standoff over voter eligibility is raising urgent questions about how election officials handle allegations of noncitizen voting — and what happens when government databases conflict with state voter records. The dispute cuts to the heart of how American democracy balances election security with the rights of eligible voters to have their ballots counted.
The U.S. Department of Justice has threatened California with a federal lawsuit, claiming that noncitizens may have received mail ballots ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. In a letter sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, acting deputy U.S. Attorney General Trent McCotter said the federal government had delivered a password-protected thumb drive to Los Angeles County officials containing the names of people it believes are likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots. The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, gave California 48 hours to review the list — or face the possibility of emergency legal action.
California mails ballots to all registered voters. Under the DOJ’s demands, the state would be required to segregate mail-in ballots from individuals whose citizenship cannot be independently verified, and to withhold ballots from anyone on the list who had not yet received one.
“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,”
the letter states. A similar letter was sent directly to the Los Angeles County Registrar’s office, which federal prosecutors had already investigated during California’s June primary.
Neither the California Secretary of State’s office nor the Los Angeles County Registrar immediately responded to requests for comment.
How Rare Is Noncitizen Voting?
To understand why this dispute matters, it helps to know the scale of the problem the federal government says it is trying to solve. The Trump administration has made identifying noncitizen voters a top priority this year — but verified cases remain extremely rare. The Justice Department has charged approximately 90 people for various forms of election misconduct so far this year. Of those, 50 are accused of voting as noncitizens. During the 2024 presidential election, there were more than 227 million registered voters in the United States.
That context is important when evaluating the federal government’s claims. In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters to California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered to vote across those states. Election officials in each state pushed back on the claim. Secretary Weber was among the skeptics.
“I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official,”
Weber said in response to Mullin’s letter.
Those doubts appear to have had some basis. When the federal government made a similar claim in Nevada — asserting that roughly 1,500 noncitizens were on that state’s voter rolls — and then shared the specific names with state officials, investigators found the actual number of registered noncitizens to be zero.
A Disputed Database at the Center of the Controversy
The federal government’s identification of suspected noncitizen voters relies on running state voter data through a Department of Homeland Security database. That database has drawn criticism from election experts and officials who say it inaccurately flags U.S. citizens as potential noncitizens — raising serious concerns about the reliability of the federal lists being sent to states.
As part of this effort, the DOJ has been demanding detailed voter information from states — including dates of birth, home addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers. Some Republican-led states have complied. Others have refused, citing state privacy laws and data security concerns. The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia to obtain that data, but has so far lost those cases in court. California was among the states that successfully fought back in court, arguing in part that handing over the data would violate state privacy protections.
That legal history adds another layer to the current standoff: the federal government is now demanding California act on a list of suspected noncitizens — even though it does not have access to the state’s full voter registration database, and California has already won a court fight to keep that data protected.
Election Officials Say the Timeline Is “Completely Unreasonable”
For the election administrators who would actually have to carry out the federal government’s demands, the 48-hour deadline poses a serious practical problem. Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, who serves as president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said she had not seen the letters but was clear about what a realistic investigation looks like.
When her office receives a report of a potentially ineligible voter, the process involves reviewing registration history, checking whether that person has previously voted, and — most critically — reaching out directly to the voter to verify information.
“It would take more than 48 hours to even begin to get the full picture,”
Webber said, calling the deadline
“completely unreasonable.”
She also raised a pointed question about the federal list itself: since the federal government does not have access to California’s detailed voter registration data, how did it compile its list of alleged noncitizen voters in the first place?
Drawing on decades of experience in local election administration, Webber offered a clear-eyed assessment of what she has actually seen in California’s voter records:
“[I have] never seen anything that would make me believe that our voter records are filled with fraudulent voters.”
The dispute between federal authorities and California election officials reflects a broader tension playing out across the country — between federal efforts to identify ineligible voters and the election administrators who say rushed, data-driven approaches risk undermining confidence in elections without solving a problem that verified evidence suggests is extremely small in scale. What happens in California in the coming days could set the tone for how similar confrontations unfold before and after Election Day.