In what marked an “unprecedented” and major “escalation” in the Trump administration’s campaign to exert more control over states’ voting processes, the Justice Department sent California a “password-protected thumb drive” and a 48-hour demand regarding the midterms, Reuters reported Tuesday night.
The DOJ sent its demand to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber in the form of a letter reviewed by Reuters, along with the aforementioned thumb drive, which contained the names of individuals the Trump administration believed to be noncitizens. In the letter, the DOJ demanded that California refuse to send ballots to the named individuals until state officials confirm their citizenship status.
The named individuals should have their ballots “segregated,” the DOJ demanded in the letter, should they have already received them, and not be counted until the voters’ citizenship had “been determined.” Furthermore, the DOJ gave California officials a 48-hour timeline to review its list of suspected noncitizens, and threatened the state with legal action should officials “not follow its instructions,” Reuters reported.
The letter was confirmed as authentic to Reuters by DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels, and represents the latest effort of the Trump administration to proactively identify noncitizens participating in elections ahead of the midterms. As noted by countless experts, however, such instances are “exceedingly rare,” according to data from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.
“A close analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s own database demonstrates that there is no crisis of noncitizen voting,” reads a recent report from the American Immigration Council. “Even in Heritage’s own data, cases of noncitizen voting are exceedingly rare.”
The Trump administration has increasingly targeted California in its purported midterm election integrity efforts, with California potentially proving “pivotal in deciding control of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Reuters noted, given the state’s recent mid-decade redistricting that was launched in response to the White House’s own redistricting blitz designed to bolster Republicans’ midterm electoral prospects.
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