DOJ Seeks Sanctions Over Analysis of Noncitizen Voter List in California
Justice Department Seeks Contempt Sanctions Over California Voting Database Analysis
The United States Department of Justice urged a federal judge to consider contempt charges against an immigrant rights group and its lawyers after they published an analysis of a federal database containing the names of 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters in California, Associated Press reported. The filing targets the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA, following a court order that granted access to the contested records solely for legal arguments regarding court standing.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg of Washington, D.C., allowed the group access to the data, while ordering the plaintiffs not to disclose any names. The order mandated that the plaintiffs use the information strictly to demonstrate their legal standing to challenge the administration’s reliance on the registry. Attorneys for the immigrant rights group countered by filing court papers on Saturday, revealing that more than 40% of the people on the list do not appear in the state’s voter file.
The analysis further identified 22 people on the government list who qualified as likely naturalized United States citizens, alongside thousands of additional citizens whose names appeared in the records. In its Sunday filing, the Justice Department argued that examining discrepancies against the broader voter file exceeded the bounds of the court order. “The report’s political grandstanding about alleged inaccuracies that purportedly impact California voters generally, or comparisons between the government’s list and the full ‘California voter file,’ has no relevance to whether the particular plaintiffs in this case have standing,” the department stated.
Alberto Lammers, a spokesman for the University of California, Los Angeles’ Voting Rights Project—which filed the underlying lawsuit and performed the data analysis—maintained that legal counsel adhered to judicial directives. “Plaintiffs’ counsel and their experts fully complied with the Court’s orders,” Lammers said in an emailed statement.
Appeals and Legal Battles Over California Voter Rolls
The dispute over the 20,000 names runs parallel to broader federal litigation regarding election administration in California. The Justice Department appealed a ruling issued by U.S. District Court Judge Trina L. Thompson. The San Francisco-based judge blocked the department from demanding that local election offices purge suspected noncitizens, segregate provisional ballots, or issue legal threats to municipal workers.
Federal attorneys argued that Thompson issued her injunction before the government could submit its initial arguments, prompting the judge to schedule a Monday hearing for the appeal. The Trump administration has experienced multiple defeats in federal courts over its noncitizen voting lists. In a separate proceeding, a California federal judge rejected a demand to separate ballots cast by flagged voters, warning that last-minute directives would “wreak havoc” on state election administration—a conclusion upheld by a two-judge appellate panel.
California election officials have consistently stated that the federal registry contains fundamental errors and lacks the secure verification procedures required by state law for emergency voter purges. Eligible voters attest to their citizenship status upon registration and face felony prosecution for casting illegal ballots. Meanwhile, the administration defends its compilation methods, asserting the list was built by cross-referencing state voter data with federal citizenship records before issuing subpoenas and warnings to county election offices.
LA County Clerk Declines Federal Voter List
The widening legal conflict highlights stark contradictions between federal enforcement actions and municipal verification records. Los Angeles County Clerk and Recorder Dean Logan declined to process the list, citing a lack of secure transmission and underlying evidentiary support.
“The Department of Justice has not provided the underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions that individuals identified in its records are ineligible to vote,” Logan stated. Similar discrepancies emerged earlier in Nevada, where Department of Homeland Security officials—operating under a broader federal initiative detailed in communications from Department of Homeland Security leadership—turned over 185 names of suspected noncitizens, all of whom local investigations subsequently verified as legal citizens.
Legal scholars point to these recurring verification failures as central to the ongoing courtroom clashes. Richard Hasen, an election law scholar at UCLA, characterized the federal efforts as publicity measures designed to press claims of systemic vulnerabilities rather than execute verifiable roll maintenance.
As federal judges weigh contempt sanctions against civil rights attorneys and evaluate emergency voting injunctions, local election offices continue processing ballots ahead of statutory deadlines without mandated purges.