Justice Department charges 28 California green card holders in voting cases

The Big Picture

The U.S. Justice Department said Monday that it has charged 28 lawful permanent residents in California with alleged election-related crimes, escalating a confrontation between the federal government and California election officials before the November midterm elections.

All 28 defendants are green card holders, meaning they have legal permission to live in the United States but are not U.S. citizens. Federal authorities said 11 defendants had been taken into custody and that further arrests were ongoing.

The cases were announced alongside an emergency federal court request seeking to prevent California from processing ballots returned by voters whom the Justice Department describes as likely noncitizens. California officials have challenged the federal government's underlying data and requested details on how the list was compiled.

What Happened

The Justice Department said the defendants face allegations including fraudulently registering to vote, voting unlawfully and making false statements concerning citizenship or voter registration. The Guardian reported that the department said 21 of the 28 defendants had cast unlawful ballots.

However, NPR reported that a number of the people charged do not appear to have voted and that some registered more than 20 years ago. The available accounts do not provide a charge by charge breakdown for all 28 cases, and the differing descriptions indicate that the allegations vary among the defendants.

According to NPR, Justice Department officials said all 28 defendants appeared on a list of 20,000 names that federal officials gave California authorities last week. The government demanded action within 48 hours after delivering the list to Los Angeles County election officials.

The department has said it charged 113 noncitizens across 20 states with voting and registration crimes during the preceding seven weeks.

Background

The California dispute centers on a federal list of voters whom the government says are likely noncitizens and who were sent mail ballots. The Justice Department asked a federal court to block the state from processing ballots returned by people on that list.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has criticized the request and said federal officials had made vague and unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. According to The Guardian, Weber said the Department of Homeland Security initially asserted that more than 190,000 registered California voters might be noncitizens, then reduced the number to about 20,000 while declining to disclose details of its methodology.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter acknowledged that some people on the 20,000-name list could ultimately be citizens. He said the smaller list represented the group in which the government had the most confidence, while the earlier 190,000 figure included medium and lower confidence cases that had not been manually verified.

California has about 23.1 million registered voters, according to recent state figures cited by The Guardian.

What Each Side Is Saying

McCotter said the Justice Department would not ignore noncitizen voting in federal elections. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli rejected the suggestion that improper registration could simply occur without an individual's action, saying registrants either attested to citizenship while obtaining a driver's license or submitted a voter registration form under oath.

California officials and election experts have raised concerns that the federal actions could disenfranchise eligible voters or undermine confidence in election administration. Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles County supervisor, called the arrests voter intimidation and said they were being used to depict voter fraud as widespread.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, told NPR that 28 allegations are a small number in a state with more than 20 million registered voters. He said it remains unknown how many allegations will be substantiated.

Noncitizen voting is illegal. NPR reported that it has not been found to be widespread in American elections.

What Happens Next

The criminal cases will proceed in federal court, while the Justice Department's emergency request puts the dispute over California's ballots before a judge. The outcome could affect how California handles ballots associated with the federal list and could shape a broader conflict over election administration as voting continues ahead of the midterms.