California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Saturday criticized the Trump administration’s push to address alleged noncitizen voting, describing the move as an effort to “politicize and weaponize the law.”
Bonta asserted that the U.S. Department of Justice acted under the direction of President Donald Trump.
“This is yet another instance of the U.S. Department of Justice politicizing and weaponizing the law to target its adversaries, which is wholly inappropriate,” Bonta said in an interview with MS Now.
With fewer than two weeks until the midterm elections, federal prosecutors demanded that California election officials verify within 48 hours a list of approximately 20,000 ballots cast by suspected noncitizens. While voting by noncitizens is exceedingly uncommon, the Department of Justice has intensified prosecutions against individuals accused of casting ballots without U.S. citizenship ahead of the midterms.
California election officials have warned that the directive risks disenfranchising eligible citizens. Los Angeles officials stated this week that a “high percentage” of the people on the list were born in the United States.
“Trump’s DOJ is so desperate to fabricate ‘widespread voter fraud’ that it sent California counties lists of individuals who never voted—and voters from the wrong county. This is an absolute clown show,” Governor Gavin Newsom wrote on social media.
“Voter intimidation has no place in our democracy,” said Representative Pete Aguilar, who represents southwestern San Bernardino County, in a social media post.
The federal government’s scrutiny forms part of a broader national Republican initiative to crack down on alleged voter fraud, especially cases involving undocumented immigrants.
“We are asking every county election official to cooperate by supplying the information needed for the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly verify citizenship status. With their assistance, we can deliver the most secure election in California’s history,” the Department of Justice stated.
Bonta has questioned the evidence supporting the alleged noncitizen ballots.
“All they provided was a list of names, without any explanation for why these individuals are supposedly ineligible. If they possess that information, we would gladly review it, but they have supplied none,” Bonta said during a recent press conference.
Recently, the Department of Justice charged 28 foreign nationals with fraudulently registering to vote.
“These arrests confirm what we have been saying,” said Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney, in a statement. “California is mailing ballots to noncitizens and refusing to comply with federal law, which criminalizes voting by noncitizens. The voting rights of American citizens must be protected.”
The defendants are lawful permanent residents with legal status in the United States, though they are not citizens and are not authorized to vote.
Some state officials declined to act on Friday’s letters, citing the rapidly approaching election, a decision that has triggered a legal confrontation with the Department of Justice. An appeals court is scheduled to hear the case on Tuesday.