WASHINGTON — More than 4 in 10 names on the Justice Department’s California voter list cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
The filing was the first outside look at the list. The department has used it to press California officials to separate ballots, and it has threatened prosecution of election officials who do not comply, according to The Associated Press.
Two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles, Matt Barreto and Michael Rios, checked the 20,930 names on the list. The department had demanded that California treat those names as possible illegal voters and separate their ballots during the vote count on Election Day.
The analysts found 8,880 names, or 42%, that do not correspond to anyone in California’s current voter file. At least 22 names are U.S. citizens, the filing said, and many more may correspond to confirmed citizens.
The work was done by members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project. They challenged the list in court with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA.
Barreto said he is certain at least 22 entries on CHIRLA’s citizen list fully match the federal list, according to Democracy Docket. The researchers also found extensive errors and duplications in the federal data.
Applying the government’s own matching method, the researchers found nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens in California were “highly likely” to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible. They said the administration appeared to have removed voter identification numbers from the names, which made the list harder for election officials to check.
A broader fight over the lists
CHIRLA and the UCLA project sued the Homeland Security Department in early October. They sought to stop the department from using federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls, and they argued the matching methods risked deterring citizens from voting.
Saturday’s analysis was possible only after a federal judge on Friday ordered the administration to share the list with the plaintiffs. The administration had objected to sharing it, calling the request a “fishing expedition” and noting the list included sensitive information.
Several judges have already rejected the demand to separate the ballots, calling it unconstitutional. On Friday, a federal judge in California ordered the Justice Department to stop sending demands to state officials, and the administration appealed that order on Saturday.
President Donald Trump complained on social media on Saturday about the rulings against the effort. He claimed his Justice Department found “20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions,” of fraudulent votes, and asked why courts would reject fixing election fraud.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,”
The department stood by the work. Department spokesperson Kiersten V. Pels wrote in an email, “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.”
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