California election officials offer absurd excuses in fight against illegal voting

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California’s uber-lax voting system is an international disgrace.

From flooding the state with ballots (with few controls on who returns them), to weeks of post-Election-Day counting, to a ban on Voter ID: The system’s almost seems engineered to seed public doubt — or worse.

Yet state officials refuse to clean it up.

Good for the feds, then, for pressing the issue. In recent months, Team Trump has investigated — and in some cases, prosecuted — voting fraud in California.

Now, the Justice Department has given the state and LA County an ultimatum: Review and quarantine ballots that might have been sent to noncitizen voters, or face emergency litigation. 

And do it within 48 hours.

“For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” advised a letter from the DOJ.

The feds are right to press the point, and the state and county would do well to drop the excuses, and comply. 

Fighting the order only strengthens suspicions that California’s sanctuary policies may have trickled into balloting.

And state and county election officials should seek ways to restore confidence in California elections — not further erode it by stonewalling federal efforts to enforce the law.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is, after all, illegal.

It’s also wrong, as it dilutes the franchise of every eligible voter. And in close races, even a small number of ballots from noncitizens might tip the balance — determining who’s elected and which measures pass or fail.

How insane would it be if noncitizen voters were to help defeat Prop. 39, the Nov. 3 initiative to require Voter ID in California elections?

And why, indeed, should the state (and feds) require ID to buy liquor or board a plane — but not to cast a ballot?

Prop. 39, which would require citizenship verification for voting, is a no-brainer in California. In-person voters would simply show an ID, while mail-in voters would write the last four digits of their ID number on the ballot’s return envelope.

It’s simple, painless and would help ease pervasive doubts that illegal immigrants — registered to vote inadvertently or otherwise — are casting votes in lax California.

Democrats — including state Attorney General Rob Bonta and LA County registrar Dean Logan — quickly denigrated the feds’ latest request. Bonta raved about “conspiracy theories,” while Logan dismissed “unconfirmed data matching.”

That’s hogwash. Instead of the tired “resistance” playbook, how about California’s power-mad leftists try cooperating?

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Election integrity, including Voter ID, should be a nonpartisan issue.

We should all want to get it right — and help restore faith in state and local election results.

California should reform its laughingstock of a balloting system. 

And it should abide, not resist, calls for review, transparency, compliance and improvement.

If the feds are wrong, and the voting rolls are clean, let’s see that.

If the DOJ’s right, then let’s clean them up.

And either way, let’s promote peace of mind by approving Prop. 39, the Voter ID law. 

While public officials clash over whether or not California elections are fair, we, the voters, can finally help ensure that they are.