The Justice Department sent letters to at least 10 states on Tuesday threatening criminal prosecution of top election officials if ballots cast by noncitizens were counted in upcoming elections.
The letters arrived in the midst of an ongoing campaign by President Trump and his allies to tighten election rules to prevent a problem that doesn’t exist: widespread noncitizen voting in American elections.
The effort has, however, continued to sow doubt and distrust in the electoral process, most notably among the president’s base of supporters. And his proposals could have the effect of making it more difficult for eligible voters to cast their ballots — an outcome that many voting-right activists say is the president’s real goal.
The letters sent on Tuesday came from Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the Justice Department’s civil rights division. They are largely identical, according to multiple copies obtained by The New York Times. The seven-page letters detail a host of federal election laws that prohibit noncitizens from voting in elections — laws that have been clear for decades.
“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s” voter list “or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” Ms. Dhillon wrote.
The letters asked the election officials to respond to the Justice Department “within five days” with details on how their states intended to comply “with these federal laws both at the state and local level and how the Department can assist in those efforts.” It is unclear what would happen if a state does not respond in five days, as the letters are not subpoenas requiring a response.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, the top election official in Utah and a Republican, expressed frustration with the Justice Department’s tenor and tactics.
“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” Ms. Henderson wrote on social media. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”
At least 11 states, including Utah, confirmed to the Times that they received a letter from Ms. Dhillon on Tuesday.
It is unclear whether every state received a letter, or just those that have not acquiesced to demands from the Justice Department to turn over unredacted state voter roll lists. Roughly 16 states have turned over their private voter information to the department, according to tracking done by the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank focused on democracy and voting rights issues. Justice Department officials have said their purpose is to ensure compliance with federal law requiring states to maintain accurate voting rolls. Some voting-rights advocates have speculated that the department’s specific aim is to look for evidence of noncitizen voting or use voter roll data to challenge future election results.
A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
David Becker, a former voting rights lawyer for the Justice Department who now runs the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works to build confidence in elections, said that the letters from Ms. Dhillon look like a performative display by the Justice Department to show it is working aggressively on one of the president’s priorities despite little success.
“This is what panic and desperation looks like,” Mr. Becker said. “They’ve had 18 months to find evidence of a crime that was never committed, and found nothing. And now they fall back on crude and transparent bullying tactics. They sent these letter to several, perhaps all states, with no specific evidence of a crime.”
He added that “the election officials I’ve spoken with aren’t intimidated, and are seeing these empty threats for what they are.”
For years, Mr. Trump has claimed without evidence that noncitizens voting in American elections have benefited Democrats. After the 2016 election, which he won, he claimed that as many as three million ballots in California had been cast by noncitizens.
Since returning to office, Mr. Trump has led a relentless effort to prove his claims using the levers of the federal government.
None of those investigations has provided any evidence of widespread noncitizen voting. An initial review in January of nearly 50 million voter registration records by the Department of Homeland Security referred roughly 0.02 percent of the names processed for further investigation
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