DOJ Gives California Counties 48 Hours to Commit on Suspected Noncitizen Ballots, Warns of Legal Jeopardy

Federal prosecutors have sent letters to California county registrars giving them 48 hours to commit to working with the Justice Department and Homeland Security to check a federal list of voters the government says may be noncitizens, and to separate — not cancel — ballots whose citizenship cannot be confirmed. NBC News reporting cited by ENM News said letters went to 57 of California's 58 counties, while Associated Press reporting said at least 18 counties had received letters when it published. Senator Alex Padilla pushed back, saying the administration has produced no evidence of widespread fraud and is relying on inaccurate data — a claim the federal side disputes.

Awaaz Punjab Investigations Desk24 October 20264 min readRead in all 3 languages

LOS ANGELES, California — Federal prosecutors have put California election officials on notice in letters sent on Friday: review a list of registered voters the government says may include noncitizens, or risk legal consequences. ENM News, citing a letter obtained by NBC News, reported the letters went to 57 of California's 58 counties, and that Los Angeles County had received a similar notice the week before.

Source: ENM News / NBC News, Oct. 24, 2026

Associated Press reporting, cited by CBS News, put the confirmed reach more cautiously: at least 18 counties had received the letters when AP published, according to the Los Angeles County registrar's office. The two counts differ because one describes letters sent and the other describes letters confirmed received at publication time.

Source: Associated Press via CBS News, Oct. 24, 2026

One letter, sent to San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Joani Finwall from the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles, shares a list of 1,133 names in that county described as likely aliens, ENM News reported. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli told county officials to commit within 48 hours to working with the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to determine which names belong to citizens and which do not.

Source: ENM News / NBC News, Oct. 24, 2026

If citizenship cannot be confirmed, officials should separate the ballots rather than cancel them until the question is resolved, the letter says. Essayli warned that continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those individuals, or counting ballots before citizenship is verified, could bring legal consequences, and said any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy.

Source: Associated Press, Oct. 24, 2026

The letters are an escalation of an existing court fight, not the start of one. The Justice Department has already sued over more than 20,000 mail ballots from voters it suspects are not U.S. citizens, and on Thursday the administration asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to step in before a lower court rules, ENM News reported. A hearing in the underlying case is scheduled for Tuesday, AP reported.

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California pushed back late on Friday, saying the administration has not produced evidence for its claims of widespread fraud, that federal officials are relying on inaccurate and unreliable data, and that election officials are being threatened without legal authority to interfere, ENM News reported. The federal list is a list of suspected cases, not a court finding that any named person is ineligible; citizenship still has to be checked person by person, and a ballot set aside during verification is not a ballot permanently rejected.

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