DOJ files suit against Calif. county over noncitizen voters

By Kenneth Schrupp
The Center Square

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the Orange County, Calif. registrar of voters for refusing to provide records regarding the removal of noncitizens from voter registration lists, and for failing to maintain accurate voter lists. 

According to the lawsuit filed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, whose Civil Rights Division is handling the case, “the family member of a non-citizen in Orange County indicating that the non-citizen received an unsolicited mail-in ballot from the [the Orange County Registrar of Voters], despite lack of citizenship.” 

After learning of this, the DOJ requested records showing the number of voter registrations canceled since January 2020 due to failures to satisfy the citizenship requirement and records relevant to each cancellation, including the voting histories associated with noncitizens. 

OCR provided some of the requested information. But it redacted personal identifying information such as drivers’ license and state-assigned voter identification numbers, language preferences and images of signatures, citing California law. 

DOJ responded by noting federal law pre-empts state law. The department said the only records exempt from the the 1993 National Voter Registration Act “relate to a declination to register to vote or the identity of the voter registration agency through which any particular voter registered.” 

DOJ filed its lawsuit after OCR informed DOJ it would not provide the un-redacted information, citing the 2002 Help America Vote Act that authorizes civil action against jurisdictions to enforce the requirement that voter lists are accurate and current. 

The complaint does not include the number of records in question, including how many noncitizens may have been registered to vote, were removed from the rolls, did vote and if so, in how many elections. 

OCR stated it does “not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”

In the consolidated city-county of San Francisco, noncitizens have been allowed to vote for school board elections since 2016. Last year, a third of the residents in Santa Ana, a city in Orange County, voted to allow illegal immigrants to vote in all municipal elections in a measure that ultimately did not pass.

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