The U.S. Department of Justice expanded its efforts to intervene in the ongoing election in California on Friday, sending letters to county elections offices across the state with demands that it separate ballots from voters the Trump administration believes are noncitizens. The letters, which give officials 48 hours to act and threaten them with criminal punishment if they refuse, follow similar correspondence the Justice Department sent last week to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, head of the Los Angeles County recorder’s office, asking about 20,000 ballots across the state be set aside and not counted until state and local officials can prove the voters are citizens. When Weber and Logan objected, the Justice Department quickly sued them and the state in a case currently pending in federal court. California officials have maintained that the Justice Department’s efforts are illegal. The new letters, first published by the San Francisco Chronicle, follow earlier threats from Justice Department officials and President Trump warning that local election officials in California could face criminal prosecution for being “abettors and abettors of a federal crime” if they tabulate the votes of the “probable noncitizens” the administration has targeted. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles said 57 of California’s 58 counties received the letters, with the exception of Los Angeles, which had already received notification. “The letters speak for themselves. Any election official who knowingly processes a non-citizen’s ballot exposes himself to legal jeopardy,” said First Assistant United States Attorney. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said in a statement. Essayli wrote Friday afternoon on a query from The Times. California Lawyer. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office declined to comment. Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, who is president of the California Association. of clerks and election officials, said: “From what I’ve been able to gather, most, if not all, counties are doing what I’m doing: I sat down with our attorney and went over everything,” Webber said. Webber said two people with Department of Justice credentials showed up at his office on Friday and handed him a manila envelope with the letter inside demanding that he comply within 48 hours to determine the citizenship of 81 people in his county. “I can’t tell you anything other than I’m looking at it and doing my due diligence,” he said. “This is not normal protocol for us.” Kristin Connelly, chief of the Contra Costa County recorder’s office, said she was also among those who received a letter. He said he had not yet responded as of Friday evening, but was in contact with his county attorney and “colleagues across the state who received similar letters today.” “The nonpartisan Contra Costa County Elections Division administers elections in accordance with all state and federal election laws, as well as the United States Constitution and the California State Constitution. Our work is observable,” Connelly said. “This threat is not helpful and is intended to intimidate.” The letter you received from the United States Attorney. Craig Missakian, was filled with threats of criminal punishment for tabulating votes from people who the county said might not be U.S. citizens. Missakian, the top federal prosecutor for the Northern District of California, wrote that he was providing Connelly with a “subset” of “407 potential aliens” from the state’s broader list of 20,000 voters, and demanded that Connelly commit within 48 hours to working with Justice Department and Homeland Security officials to identify who among those 407 “is a citizen and who is not.” “That means sending us the non-public information associated with each suspected alien’s registration, which includes everything in your possession, from the following: a social security number, a copy of a state ID or driver’s license or the information appearing on it, a copy of the voter registration application supporting the registration, and a copy or list of documents the applicant submitted at the time the person registered to vote or obtained their driver’s license if they were registered as a motor voter,” he wrote. Missakian also wrote that he was reaching out by letter “to make unequivocally clear the legal implications of continuing to mail ballots to those on the list or tabulate ballots cast by them until citizenship can be verified.” A federal judge rejected the lawsuit, calling the lawsuits a threat to democracy. The Justice Department also lost similar cases demanding voter registrations in dozens of other states. Alex Padilla said in a statement Friday that “Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are trying to interfere in California elections.” Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees federal elections, added: “No matter how many lawsuits they file or how many election officials they threaten, Padilla told local election officials: “We support them.” “The Trump administration is scared and desperate,” he said. will fail.” The Justice Department has received some records by subpoenaing state and county officials to provide specific voter records. The letters were a topic of discussion among members of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials on Friday, and officials will work on how to respond. Logan, Los Angeles County’s top elections official, sent an email to association members saying he had seen a copy of the letter sent to some counties, which he condemned for misrepresenting facts and threatening officials. Logan called the 48-hour deadline for responses “unenforceable” and noted that the Justice Department was “demanding individual-level data from the named counties, similar to what it had previously only obtained through subpoenas.” In the US, many were not registered and many had never voted.
