Los Angeles officials appear to have made a damning concession in a filing related to the legal feud over 20,000 people identified as "likely noncitizens" who are registered to vote.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the Department of Justice demanded that state and L.A. County officials refrain from tabulating the vote-by-mail ballots of the individuals in question, at least for the federal election in less than two weeks. California automatically sends out a mail-in ballot to all registered voters.
'California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California.'
Earlier this month, California officials denied a similar request from the federal government and accused the government of making difficult demands to cause a political spectacle.
On Monday, the DOJ requested an emergency temporary restraining order to force officials to set aside the potentially illegal ballots, but the state's officials are still rebelling.
California officials filed motions to oppose the emergency TRO on Tuesday — and soon after, First Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli posted a damning admission to the state's cause.
"Massive concession: Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. (They simply take their word for it)," he posted in a statement on social media.
"Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections," he added. "Yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California."
Essayli pointed to a section from the motion where a Los Angeles official said officials were not "equipped" to meet the citizenship certification demands of the government in time for the election.
"The Registrar is not equipped or authorized to verify voter citizenship because it does not independently house citizenship-related information beyond the voter attestation as identified in federal and state law (such as, among other things, immigration records, travel records, naturalization records, etc.) and certainly is not equipped to do so within the election period," the defendants wrote.
Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom of California responded through his press office on social media.
"California adheres to Federal Law passed by Congress in the 1990s [see 52 U.S.C. 20504(c)(2) (Section 5 of the NVRA)]. May want to brush up on your election law before tweeting. Perhaps Second Assistant is more apt from now on?" the official account wrote.
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He also responded via social media to the first lawsuit filed by the Justice Department over the possibly ineligible voters.
"This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day," the governor said.
"Courts have made clear the federal government has no role in running state elections," he added. "We will defend free and fair elections in the Golden State and call out every authoritarian attempt to undermine our democracy."
While California is very left-leaning, there are some competitive congressional races that could help determine whether Democrats seize control of the House.
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