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California Attorney General Rob Bonta was defiant when asked about the massive voter fraud operation carried out by federal agents Monday morning — arguing the alleged noncitizen voters are just a “drop in the bucket” given the state’s tens of millions of registered voters.
Asked about the early-morning raids, in which 11 California residents were arrested over allegations of noncitizen voting, Bonta said “voter fraud is illegal, voter fraud is wrong” and claimed the number of people arrested proves that fraud is rare at a press conference in San Francisco.
“Every count, recount, hand count, case audit shows that,” the attorney general said.
“It’s .0001% of all of the registered voters and it makes the point there is no widespread voter fraud and that there is, at times, isolated one-off examples of voter fraud,” Bonta added, referring to the 28 people facing charges related to the federal operation, dubbed “Operation Protect the Vote.”
“These are arrests, we’ll see what the facts show, whether they’ll have to drop charges or be able to prosecute,” he said.
Federal prosecutors made the arrests in a coordinated statewide action, also announcing in a press release that 28 noncitizens are facing charges for allegedly making false statements on naturalization paperwork or illegally registering to vote.
People arrested in the voter raids included José Probitsado Amaro, 51, a citizen of the Philippines living in San Diego County’s National City, whom federal authorities said registered to vote by falsely claiming to be a US citizen.
City of Commerce resident Alexander Muñoz, 72, was also snared in a 6 a.m arrest witnessed by The California Post. The Belizean national is accused of fraudulently registering to vote in September 2019, then voting in US elections in 2020, 2022 and 2024.
Bonta argued at the Monday presser that the number of people arrested is small in light of the 23 million registered voters in California.
“The announcement by the DOJ today makes the point that there is no widespread voter fraud, but when there are isolated incidents … those individuals should be held accountable,” Bonta said.
He cited the case of an Orange County dog who mom who was prosecuted for registering her pet to vote. She was forced to pay for anti-voter fraud billboards as part of a plea deal.
“No, this isn’t the total number of noncitizen voters in California. Police can’t catch every speeder, but that doesn’t mean speeding isn’t widespread. 28 is what we could charge in a week,” First Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said on X Monday.
The federal arrests are a significant escalation of a fight between California and President Donald Trump’s administration over alleged voter fraud ahead of the midterm elections next month.
Last week, the Justice Department officials ordered California officials to review a list of 20,000 “likely” noncitizens they claimed were California’s voter rolls, provided on a thumb drive — giving the state 48 hours to comply.
Secretary of State Shirley Weber wrote in a letter that the feds provided no evidence of the alleged noncitizen voters, referencing an instance in which federal officials made claims about 16,000 alleged noncitizen voters in Nevada who were later determined to be citizens, per Associated Press.
The DOJ is “demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide,” Weber wrote in the letter.
Voting is already underway in California, with ballots mailed at the start of October.
The federal government then filed a lawsuit alleging the DOJ has an obligation to intervene to prevent the state from permitting noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a “desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day.
“The courts have made clear that the federal government has no role in how a state carries out its election process, and now, in the middle of Californians voting, they have asked local officials — who do a damn good job defending democracy — to violate federal law,” Newsom said.