Trump Administration Challenges LA County Over Alleged Noncitizen Voters

WHO:

The Guardian - Sergio Perez, a former Justice Department lawyer and civil rights advocate, said the effort was “an intentional effort to chill the vote in California” and called it “improper politicization of the office.”

Democracy Docket - Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said an initial review of the federal list found U.S. citizens, inactive voters, and people not currently registered.

The Guardian - California county clerk-recorder Keaton Denlay said he reviewed the federal list himself so his staff could focus on the election.

NPR - Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester said Democrats wanted to partner with state and local election authorities and civil-society groups to protect election administration and voters.

NPR - Senate Republican leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson were cited by Marc Elias as not acting to defend Congress’s role in election administration.

NPR - Sen. Mitch McConnell, chair of the Senate committee overseeing election administration, had not said whether Republican staff would join the Senate election observer program.

The Guardian - Keaton Denlay said the federal demand letter misspelled his name as “Danlay.” It was signed by Eric Grant, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California.

NPR - White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said President Trump had taken “decisive action to protect our elections,” including prosecuting election crimes and protecting voters from fraud and coercion.

NPR - Justin Vail of Protect Democracy described a three-step playbook: “deceive, disrupt and deny.”

NPR - Election litigator Marc Elias said his firm had been involved in dozens of lawsuits spanning every state.

The Guardian - Bill Essayli was 40 and served as an interim U.S. attorney for the Central District of California without Senate confirmation.

The Guardian - A federal judge ruled Essayli was “unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States attorney” and disqualified him from overseeing two cases; the order did not take immediate effect, and DOJ said it would appeal.

The Guardian - Essayli’s office charged 13 green-card holders with allegedly registering to vote unlawfully.

CNN - Anna Baldwin, an attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens and NAACP, called the process “a recipe for disenfranchisement” and said it used Social Security numbers “they’ve glued to the voter file” to search for alien numbers.

CalMatters - Butte County Clerk-Recorder Keaton Denlay received a federal demand concerning 47 people; his review found 32 were not on active voter rolls, seven could not be confidently matched, and six might be ineligible to vote.

CalMatters - Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus said the letter’s list was difficult to read and count.

CalMatters - San Benito County Registrar of Voters Francisco Diaz said his office received a demand concerning 33 names.

CalMatters - Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said federal prosecutors alleged the county had 1,754 “likely aliens” on voter rolls.

CalMatters - Center for Election Innovation & Research Executive Director David Becker said the administration’s claims “fall apart as they’re subjected to scrutiny.”

CNN - The Trump administration, the Justice Department (DOJ), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are investigating alleged noncitizens on state voter rolls.

CNN - California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan, and LA County challenged the federal government’s data and requests.

CNN - Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said the government had “developed credible evidence” and was trying to “protect votes of lawful citizens.”

CNN - U.S. District Judge David Carter appointed a special master to examine data from the federal government and Los Angeles County.

CNN - Ninth Circuit judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez joined in rejecting DOJ’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds; Sanchez also cited doubts about the data’s accuracy and reliability.

CNN - DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed 250,000 noncitizens were registered across California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. DHS later said 190,000 remained potential noncitizens in California, while 20,000 were the subset that had undergone manual verification.

CNN - Los Angeles County reviewed a sample of 200 names from 7,035 listed county addresses. Its review found 42.9% had canceled registrations, 4.6% were inactive, more than 71% had never voted, and 38.9% of those with a recorded birthplace were born in the United States.

CNN - USCIS official Nicolas Bartell said the agency reviewed 51 voters whose county records indicated U.S. birth; USCIS records showed none were born in the United States, though four “might have a claim to U.S. citizenship.”

NY Post - The article reports that Los Angeles County’s account of suspected noncitizen voters met a federal response claiming none were born in the United States.

NPR - The Democratic election protection task force includes lawmakers and staff, election litigators, scholars, and nonpartisan organizations. Senator Alex Padilla and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said more than 100 staff would join a new Senate election observer program.

WHAT:

Democracy Docket - DOJ threatened litigation unless Washington stopped processing ballots associated with people on a federal list. Its letter demanded a review within 24 hours and said ballots should not be verified or tabulated until citizenship was determined.

Democracy Docket - Hobbs said a “significant number” of people on the Washington list had inactive or no current registrations, and that “many” were U.S. citizens. He invited DOJ to provide individualized evidence of ineligibility.

Democracy Docket - Washington said DOJ’s submission lacked an explanation of its data sources or supporting documentation, arrived as a PDF of a printed spreadsheet, omitted voter identification numbers and addresses, and contained duplicate entries.

Democracy Docket - Hobbs said DOJ’s letter misstated Election Day as “Nov. 2”; the election is “Nov. 3.” He cited Voting Rights Act protections and National Voter Registration Act limits on systematic voter removals within 90 days of a federal election.

NY Post - Three people—a Mexican national, a Cambodian national, and a Canadian national—were indicted on charges of illegally registering to vote in California.

The Guardian - Denlay said he never received a digital copy of the federal spreadsheet and had no further communication with DOJ.

The Guardian - The Guardian reported that Essayli’s office had charged 13 green-card holders with allegedly registering to vote unlawfully; one 72-year-old defendant was arrested in front of news cameras and featured in a DOJ promotional video.

The Guardian - DOJ data covering 113 prosecutions of alleged crimes against immigration officers showed 33 cases dismissed, nine jury acquittals, four trial convictions—including two felony convictions—and 13 felony guilty pleas; the remaining cases were resolved as misdemeanor pleas, with some trials pending.

The Guardian - Jonathon Redondo-Rosales spent six months jailed before a judge dismissed his case with prejudice after finding prosecutors’ dismissal request was made in “bad faith.”

The Guardian - Sandra Samame was acquitted of stalking and conspiracy charges after spending about three months in jail; two co-defendants were convicted.

The Guardian - In a separate Skid Row prosecution, a defendant was jailed for two nights before prosecutors dismissed the case after defense lawyer Robert Bernstein identified a photograph of a different person in the complaint.

The Guardian - Essayli’s office had lost roughly one-third of its legal staff by July 2025, according to reports cited by the newspaper.

The Guardian - The DOJ case against rapper Lil Durk ended in a not-guilty verdict; a judge also dismissed Essayli’s lawsuit seeking to bar transgender girls from women’s sports.

NPR - The House’s staff election observer program dates to the 1980s; the Senate program is its first of its kind.

The Guardian - Denlay said the federal letter requested Social Security numbers and asked the county to segregate—not cancel—ballots while citizenship status was checked. He said the two-page list contained 46 names, including one duplicate, rather than the 47 stated in the letter.

The Guardian - The Justice Department letter warned that officials who knowingly tabulated ballots cast by people identified by federal agencies as noncitizens risked becoming “aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”

NPR - The Supreme Court halted President Trump’s order directing the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on registered-voter lists.

NPR - The federal district court’s nationwide vacatur of DOJ’s voter-data collection policy affected states that had already voluntarily provided data as well as states that resisted.

CNN - USCIS said it obtained California’s public voter list in August 2025; DOJ redacted the identity of the person who obtained it from the state.

CNN - A whistleblower report submitted to Sen. Alex Padilla alleged that information absent from the source data was added through a process called “supplemental magic.”

CNN - The Supreme Court allowed the federal government to continue using the SAVE database for noncitizen-voter investigations; DHS said SAVE was not used to compile the list sent to California.

The Guardian - The Justice Department provided the Guardian data showing that, among 113 people prosecuted by Essayli’s office for alleged crimes against immigration officers, 33 had charges dismissed, nine were acquitted by juries, four were found guilty at trial, and 13 pleaded guilty to felonies.

CNN - DHS said it identified 15,903 possible noncitizens on Nevada voter rolls but manually confirmed 185; a Nevada official said state records showed those 185 were citizens.

CNN - USCIS said its list-generation process included assigning confidence levels to potential matches, manual review, and referring cases to Homeland Security Investigations.

NPR - The State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison counted 31 federal lawsuits seeking state voter data.

CalMatters - Federal letters gave California counties 48 hours to agree to cooperate and segregate ballots; they threatened possible criminal charges for officials who knowingly tabulated ballots cast by people federal agencies identified as noncitizens.

CNN - DOJ asked California to set aside ballots of people it alleged might be noncitizens and sued after California said the request conflicted with state law. A court appointed a special master to examine the competing data.

CNN - DHS’s process used voter-roll data, a commercial platform identified as LexisNexis Accurint, federal databases, confidence assessments, and manual review. The agency said it compared records with State Department and Social Security Administration databases.

CNN - DHS said it reviewed more than 100 million voter records, identified 300,000 “potential” noncitizens, opened 1,620 investigations, and the effort had led to around 160 arrests.

NPR - A federal district court ruled that DOJ’s voter-data collection policy exceeded its authority, was arbitrary and capricious, and violated federal law; the court vacated it nationwide. DOJ appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

WHERE:

The Guardian - The Skid Row arrests and mistaken-identity prosecution occurred in Los Angeles.

CNN - Washington state’s secretary of state’s office said one of the 400 records DOJ cited dated from 1994.

CNN - The dispute centers on California and Los Angeles County; the administration also sent alleged noncitizen voter lists to Washington state.

NPR - The Senate observer program will allow designated staff to observe voting and tabulation locations; observers are not to advocate, count votes, or interfere with voters or election staff.

WHEN:

The Guardian - Denlay said a person identifying himself as a DHS agent delivered the paperwork at about 3:30 p.m.; the DOJ letter imposed a 48-hour deadline.

WHY:

NPR - Democratic election task-force members said slow vote counts and other ordinary election procedures could be portrayed as fraud, potentially undermining trust in election results.

NPR - Democratic election task-force members said they were preparing for claims that ordinary election procedures, including slow vote counts, would be presented as evidence of fraud.

CNN - The administration describes its investigations as an effort to identify noncitizens registered to vote and protect election integrity. California and LA County argued that flawed matches could disenfranchise citizens.

HOW:

The Guardian - Denlay said the federal spreadsheet’s columns were too narrow to display some information, making it difficult to match entries against voter records.

The Guardian - Jonathon Redondo-Rosales’s defense cited video that contradicted an officer’s claim that Redondo-Rosales punched him.

NPR - The new Senate election-observer program allows designated staff from both parties to observe voting and ballot tabulation, but bars them from advocating for candidates, counting votes, or interfering with voters or election workers.

CNN - USCIS said it uses State Department and Social Security Administration databases to identify records indicating citizenship or death, assigns confidence levels to possible matches, manually reviews cases, and refers cases to Homeland Security Investigations.

CalMatters - Denlay said the list lacked complete identifying details, including full names, addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers, and Social Security numbers.

CNN - California said the list relied on a voter roster more than a year old, obtained from an unidentified source, supplemented through a commercial platform, and matched against federal databases.

(UPDATED October 29, 2026 04:05 UTC)

Federal officials are seeking voter records from California and Washington as they investigate alleged noncitizens on voter rolls, but local reviews and courts have raised serious questions about the lists’ accuracy and the government’s methods. Washington officials say the data included citizens, inactive or unregistered voters, duplicate entries and missing information, while a federal judge appointed a special master to examine disputed data in Los Angeles County; a federal appeals court also rejected the Justice Department’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds. The administration says it is protecting lawful voters, while election officials and advocates warn the demands could undermine voting access, and Democrats have launched a national effort to support election administrators and observe elections.

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(UPDATED October 29, 2026 02:00 UTC)

The Trump administration and federal agencies are investigating alleged noncitizens on state voter rolls, but California officials and election advocates have challenged the data and the federal demands, citing errors and questions about its accuracy. A federal judge appointed a special master to examine records from the government and Los Angeles County, while the Ninth Circuit rejected the Justice Department’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds, with one judge also questioning the data’s reliability. Democrats are organizing a Senate election observer program and working with local officials and civic groups to protect voters, as the Supreme Court halted Trump’s order restricting mail-in ballots to people on registered-voter lists.

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(UPDATED October 29, 2026 01:14 UTC)

Federal officials are investigating alleged noncitizens on voter rolls and have demanded voter data from states and counties, while California is challenging the requests and a federal judge has appointed a special master to examine the competing data. Reviews have found major discrepancies: Butte County’s review of 47 people identified by federal officials found only six who might be ineligible, and Los Angeles County found many sampled registrations were canceled or inactive, while DHS says its records show no U.S. births among 51 voters it examined. Courts have rejected some federal efforts on procedural grounds, a judge ruled Bill Essayli was unlawfully serving as a U.S. attorney and disqualified him from two cases, and the Justice Department says it will appeal.

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(UPDATED October 28, 2026 19:02 UTC)

A federal judge ruled that Bill Essayli was unlawfully serving as a de facto U.S. attorney and barred him from overseeing two cases, though the order is on hold while the Justice Department appeals. The decision comes amid a wider dispute over the Trump administration’s efforts to identify suspected noncitizens on voter rolls: California and Los Angeles County challenge the federal data, and a court has appointed a special master to examine it. County reviews found many names were inactive, canceled or difficult to verify, while federal officials say they use database checks and manual review to assess potential matches.

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(UPDATED October 28, 2026 16:04 UTC)

A federal campaign to identify alleged noncitizens on voter rolls has sparked disputes with California and other states, with officials challenging the accuracy of the data and warning that flawed matches could affect eligible voters. County reviews found many listed people were inactive or not on active rolls, while federal officials say their process uses database checks and manual reviews; in Nevada, state officials said all 185 people federal authorities manually confirmed were citizens. Courts have rejected the Justice Department’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds and struck down its nationwide voter-data collection policy, while a judge appointed a special master to examine competing California records.

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(UPDATED October 28, 2026 13:07 UTC)

The Trump administration’s effort to identify alleged noncitizens on voter rolls has triggered a dispute with California, where state and Los Angeles County officials say flawed data could wrongly threaten citizens’ right to vote. A federal judge appointed a special master to examine the competing records, while an appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds; separately, a federal court struck down the department’s nationwide voter-data collection policy, which the department has appealed. DHS says its reviews identified potential noncitizens and led to investigations and arrests, but the figures and record checks remain contested, and Senate Democrats are launching an election observer program to monitor voting and ballot counting without interfering.