Voting rights groups want to quickly step into the Justice Department’s lawsuit against California as the Trump administration seeks to block the state from counting the votes of over 20,000 people it says could be noncitizen voters.
The League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in a filing Friday, said the DOJ’s actions “flout the law, disregard the realities of election administration, and defy basic standards of decency — all while voting is underway.”
The DOJ gave California a letter and a password-protected thumb drive, along with the password attached on a sticky note, with a list of voters it believed were potential noncitizens who received a mail-in ballot through California’s universal vote-by-mail system.
The state was given 48 hours to comply with checking whether each citizen was a voter, which would have meant checking 417 names per hour. Now, the DOJ is suing California for not complying with that letter.
Trending
LULAC and the NAACP argue that they can intervene as organizations that represent vulnerable groups to protect civil and political rights. They also argue that their interference is not premature because of the looming deadline of Election Day.
“The Federal Government seeks to control which voters may remain on California’s voter rolls, which ballots get counted, and which steps voters must take to prove their citizenship,” the filing says. “Such drastic alterations to California election procedures — sought at the eleventh hour — would have immense effects on [the voting groups’] election-related work and their members’ ability to vote.”
The administration is not backing down from pursuing California’s voters. Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, told Fox News on Friday that the government would be seeking an emergency order forcing California to set those 20,000 ballots aside.
The groups’ request could be denied by the court, though Friday’s request also mentions that the case has yet to get a judge or set a date.
“They are only interested in protecting California voters’ and their members’ ability to engage in meaningful political participation, including casting a ballot and having that ballot counted alongside the ballots of other eligible California voters,” the groups’ filing says.
Author
