A UCLA Voting Rights Project analysis revealed that 42% of the 20,930 names on a Department of Justice list of alleged noncitizen voters in California do not exist on the state's voter rolls, while thousands of U.S. citizens were erroneously flagged. Multiple federal judges and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected DOJ attempts to sequester ballots or remove voters. In response, the DOJ requested criminal contempt sanctions against the immigrant rights group CHIRLA for publishing the findings.
UCLA analysis of the California list
- ▪An analysis by UCLA Voting Rights Project data scientists found that 8,880 names, or 42 percent of the 20,930 entries on the Justice Department's list of alleged noncitizen voters in California, do not appear in California's voter rolls
- ▪UCLA researchers reported that the Justice Department omitted voter identification numbers from its list of alleged noncitizen voters in California, removing the essential data point required for election officials to check for duplicate entries
- ▪The UCLA Voting Rights Project analysis identified 22 confirmed U.S. citizens on the Justice Department's list of alleged noncitizen voters in California and found that nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens were highly likely erroneously flagged as ineligible
DOJ creation and delivery of California voter list
- ▪The Department of Justice created its list of more than 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters in California by cross-referencing a commercially purchased partial California voter roll dataset against federal immigration database records
- ▪The federal government provided a list of 20,000 alleged noncitizens to California officials
Federal enforcement and prosecution actions
- ▪Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter held a news conference, displaying photos of individuals charged with illegal voter registration
- ▪Federal prosecutors in California charged 28 individuals and arrested at least 11 people from the Department of Justice's list of 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters in California prior to late October 2026
- ▪The Department of Justice issued subpoenas to California election offices and warned election officials that knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote could result in criminal prosecution
Court rulings blocking federal voter list demands
- ▪On October 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Trina L. Thompson barred the Justice Department from demanding that California election officials remove suspected noncitizens from voter rolls or separate their ballots
- ▪On October 30, 2026, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Justice Department's request to force California to set aside disputed ballots belonging to alleged noncitizen voters, citing the U.S. Constitution's Elections Clause
- ▪U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected a federal request to section off 20,000 ballots in California, ruling that last-minute intervention violated constitutional principles and risked election disruption
Legal dispute over Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights data access
- ▪On November 1, 2026, the Department of Justice requested that U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg consider criminal contempt charges or sanctions against the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights
- ▪U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli criticized the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights' analysis of the Justice Department's noncitizen voter list on October 31, 2026, stating that the group lacks access to official records
- ▪The Department of Justice argued in a court filing that the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights' public analysis of the department's noncitizen voter list constituted political grandstanding irrelevant to establishing legal standing
- ▪On October 30, 2026, U.S. District Chief Judge James Boasberg granted the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights access to federal noncitizen voter list data, ordering that individual names remain confidential
Federal voter list sent to Washington state
- ▪Washington state election officials reported that the federal government's noncitizen voter list included an individual who had cast ballots in the 1990s
- ▪The Department of Justice urged Washington state election officials to remove 400 potential noncitizens from Washington's voter rolls, though state officials reported the list was unreliable
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