An analysis by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Voting Rights Project released on Saturday, Oct. 31, found that 42% of the names on a federal list of alleged noncitizen voters in California do not appear on the state’s current voter rolls. The legal filing, submitted with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), states that 8,880 of the 20,930 names flagged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) could not be matched to registered voters.
The DOJ list was provided to California officials with a demand to separate ballots cast by these individuals during the Election Day count. The Trump administration has argued that this measure is necessary to prevent ineligible voters from canceling out the votes of American citizens. However, multiple judges have rejected the demand, and California officials have refused to comply, leading to a DOJ lawsuit against the state filed on Oct. 15.
The UCLA analysis further reported that at least 22 individuals on the list are confirmed U.S. citizens, and nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens were "highly likely" to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible. In a separate filing on Oct. 20, Los Angeles County election officials analyzed a sample of 200 names from the list and found that 38.9% of those with birthplace information indicated they were born in the U.S. Additionally, 43% of the county's sample corresponded to voter registration records that had already been canceled.
The scale of the reported errors suggests that nearly 9,000 names on the list do not exist in the state's voter database. In Los Angeles County's sample, 86 people on the list were already mailed ballots for the current election. Voters flagged may notice delays in their vote being finalized or potential challenges to their status at polling places. The DOJ has warned election officials they could face criminal liability for allowing noncitizens to vote, while immigrant-rights groups argue that the federal government's data-matching methods risk disenfranchising legal voters, particularly naturalized citizens.
The legal conflict sets a precedent for how federal immigration data is used to maintain state voter rolls and whether the DOJ can compel states to segregate ballots at short notice. Similar disputes have occurred in other states, such as Nevada, where state officials investigated 185 names flagged by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and determined all were citizens. Currently, a federal judge has ordered the DOJ to stop sending these demands to California, a ruling the administration appealed on Oct. 31. The case continues as Election Day approaches.