Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor says California is poised to count noncitizen ballots in the midterms, a move he warns will corrupt the election.
The Post reported that U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli sounded the alarm after a Sunday hearing in which the Justice Department pressed California to set aside roughly 20,000 votes the federal government says came from noncitizens.
Essayli said noncitizen ballots were already being counted and that the state’s position put the integrity of the November 3 elections at risk. The three-judge panel adjourned without a ruling as of Sunday afternoon, even as Los Angeles County alone estimated it had already processed more than 500,000 mail-in ballots.
Mail-in processing started Saturday. Once those ballots are processed, DOJ attorney Matthew Donnelly told the court, the damage cannot be undone.
Essayli did not soften the charge after the hearing. He framed the fight as basic election integrity, not a procedural spat.
He said:
"Our concern is that noncitizens are actively voting in this election and California has confirmed they will count their votes. This will corrupt the integrity of the upcoming midterm election."
He went further on the state’s courtroom stance.
"I think it’s absolutely incredible that California just walked into a room with the United States government and said these votes should be counted in the elections."
And he rejected any tolerance for even a small number of illegal ballots.
"We are committed to fighting this because even one noncitizen vote is one too many. They seem completely disinterested in the fact they are tabulating votes from noncitizens."
Essayli also argued the state’s approach dilutes the votes of American citizens, the core fairness issue for lawful voters who follow the rules.
The courtroom clash did not appear overnight. In July, the Department of Homeland Security sent California Secretary of State Shirley Weber a letter citing about 190,000 potentially problematic registrants. After further DHS vetting, the figure the Justice Department is now pressing is about 20,000.
On Oct. 15, DOJ sued Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan. Federal lawyers demanded the state set those votes aside. DOJ also sent letters to every county in California seeking help identifying noncitizen voters and gave them 48 hours to comply.
Fox News reported that a USCIS cross-check of California voter rolls against federal immigration data flagged more than 20,000 registered voters as likely noncitizens who were mailed ballots. The same broader effort produced charges against 28 foreign nationals, described as lawful permanent residents, for voting-related crimes, including false statements on naturalization applications and fraudulent voter registration, with most alleged to have cast unlawful ballots.
That arrest wave, carried out in pre-dawn raids across the state last week, was described as the biggest voter fraud bust in California history. It landed just as the legal fight over the larger 20,000-name list intensified.
Sunday’s hearing before Judges Mark Bennett, Gabriel Sanchez, and Patrick Bumatay laid bare the split. Bennett, a Trump appointee, grilled the Justice Department on whether a federal court could order the relief DOJ wanted.
Bennett told DOJ counsel:
"It seems to me that you want us to issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law."
He pointed to the Elections Clause and Congress’s role, asking how a federal court could do what he said is reserved to Congress when Congress has not acted. Sanchez, a Biden appointee, pressed DOJ on the drop from 190,000 names to 20,000 and on matching problems, noting ballot envelopes carry only name, address, and signature, and that common names like his own appear many times in Los Angeles County.
Bumatay, a Trump appointee, put the practical problem to California: without an injunction, officials may never know which ballots belonged to noncitizens once votes are cast, separated, and tabulated.
Donnelly warned the court that processed mail-in votes cannot be “unprocessed,” calling the harm “irreversible and irreparable.” California’s lawyer, Sam Siegel, answered that voters already attest to citizenship under state and federal law when they register, and that if the executive branch wants broader power, it must ask Congress. Siegel also said DOJ was asking the court to short-circuit the process while an election was already underway.
If the appeal is dismissed, the case returns Tuesday to U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Santa Ana.
California’s defense rests heavily on the honor system. Siegel told the panel the many steps required to declare citizenship at registration should answer federal concerns. Los Angeles County election official Monica Flores said the registrar’s office is not equipped or authorized to verify voter citizenship because it does not independently house citizenship information beyond the voter’s own attestation, and is not an investigative agency.
That is the gap Essayli and election-integrity advocates say California’s leaders refuse to close. Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the federal effort as a “clown show” in a tense exchange on X with Essayli a day before the prosecutor’s post-hearing remarks. Essayli fired back that the state is not allowed to keep noncitizens on the rolls, “Period. Full stop.”
Prop 39 coauthor Carl DeMaio said politicians will not do a proper citizenship review on their own and are putting people in legal jeopardy, arguing the ballot measure is needed to force the issue. California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton called the episode typical of a state leadership that will not enforce the law.
Calls for voter ID have renewed as the midterms approach. The federal list is still contested. The panel has not ruled. And mail ballots continue to move through a system that, by the state’s own description in court and in county statements, does not independently check citizenship beyond what the registrant claims.
Lawful voters should not have their ballots diluted because California treats citizenship as a paperwork checkbox instead of a hard gate. If the rolls are clean, the state can prove it. If they are not, counting first and asking later is how trust dies.
