The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, ordered California election officials to review a list of individuals the federal government identifies as potential noncitizens who may have received mail-in ballots. In letters sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County officials, acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter imposed a 48-hour deadline for the review. The department stated it would seek emergency legal relief if the state and county did not comply with instructions to withhold or segregate ballots for those on the list.
The directive follows a July notification from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who told California officials that the federal government believed noncitizens were present on the state's voter rolls. Since that time, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has filed at least 30 lawsuits seeking unredacted voter rolls from various states to screen for noncitizens. To date, the department has lost 26 of those cases and has not recorded a legal victory in the effort.
According to the letters, the Justice Department provided Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive containing names of people it believes are likely noncitizens. McCotter requested that officials withhold ballots not yet sent to these individuals and "segregate — not cancel" any returned ballots from the list until citizenship is confirmed. Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels stated the department is taking action to protect election integrity and ensure compliance with federal laws that restrict voting to U.S. citizens.
For voters on the list, the action could result in their ballots being set aside and not tabulated during the upcoming election until they provide proof of citizenship. The department has already charged more than 100 people with voter fraud-related crimes during the current administration, though researchers at the Brennan Center and Brookings Institution maintain that such incidents are rare and not numerous enough to impact election outcomes.
The outcome of this demand may set a precedent for how the federal government interacts with state-managed voter rolls and the approximately 174 million registered voters nationwide. A Reuters analysis found that while approximately 30,000 self-declared noncitizens may have been added to U.S. voter rolls since 2000 due to clerical errors, the number who actually voted remains unclear. The next step depends on California's response to the 48-hour deadline; if the state refuses to segregate the ballots, the Justice Department has stated it will seek emergency intervention in court.