A letter hand-delivered Friday by the Department of Justice ordered the San Diego County Registrar of Voters to hand over private information on 1,709 voters and set aside their ballots until their citizenship can be verified, or “risk significant federal scrutiny and legal exposure.”
The letter signed by California Southern District U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon asks Registrar Shawn K. Brom to “commit” to working with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security within 48 hours, a short time period that lapsed Sunday.
Gordon asked Brom to send the “nonpublic information” for each voter’s registration, including Social Security numbers, copies of state ID or driver’s licenses, and the documents presented to obtain the voter registration or driver’s license.
The letter says that anyone whose citizenship cannot be independently verified should have their ballot set aside — not canceled— until citizenship can be verified, and warns of legal consequences for not complying.
“I write to make unmistakably clear the legal implications of continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those people on the list or tabulating ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified,” the letter said. “The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring federal crimes are significant. An alien voting in a federal election is a federal crime—and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California is the same office that sent subpoenas for the information of 25 voters to the San Diego County registrar as part of an investigation that culminated in four people being charged criminally for voting related crimes in the county last week.
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters spokesperson told inewsource Monday that it is “evaluating next steps.” In a statement, it added, “As established in state elections code, the California Secretary of State is responsible for determining eligibility for voter registration.”
It did not say if it had turned over private voter information or segregated any ballots — or indicate whether it would.
The statement ended, “There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in San Diego County or in the State of California. San Diego County voters can continue to cast their ballots with confidence and without fear. Our priority remains ensuring a secure, transparent, and accessible election for every eligible voter.”
The letter sent to San Diego County voting officials is one of 57 similar letters sent Friday to every county in California but Los Angeles, which had already received one like it, the Los Angeles Times reported last week.
The letter sent to San Diego County referenced the one sent to Los Angeles County, which Los Angeles voting officials there said they would ignore.
“A substantially similar letter to this one was sent to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk,” the San Diego County letter said. “Instead of committing to working with the Department to prevent aliens from voting in the upcoming federal election, it sent a letter declining to review the evidence presented to it and resisting our civil lawsuit to compel segregation of those ballots until citizenship could be verified.”
The letter addressed to San Diego County continued, “I write to make unmistakably clear the legal implications of continuing to send vote- by-mail ballots to those people on the list or tabulating ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified.”
The Trump administration has said there are at least 20,000 suspected noncitizen voters.
The letter sent to San Diego County said the list was developed through a “multilayered, multiagency investigative methodology at DHS.” A federal judge found the list was based on a highly flawed data analysis that could include U.S citizens on Wednesday and granted an injunction that went into effect Friday, halting operations that could intimidate eligible voters.
The Trump administration filed an appeal Monday.
Reuters reported that the Justice Department said it identified 1,754 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in Orange County, 1,355 in Riverside County, 1,133 in San Bernardino County, 334 in Ventura County, 180 in Santa Barbara County and 63 in San Luis Obispo County. Los Angeles County was told it had 7,035 suspected noncitizens.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said on social media Friday that the Trump administration was “desperate to invent ‘widespread voter fraud,’” and called the effort an “absolute clown show.”
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News: Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
