Legal experts call DOJ California ballot lawsuit "a long shot"

Court papers show some of the 28 charged were confused on eligibility

Some legal experts have called the Justice Department’s lawsuit against California “a long shot” and “a press release masquerading as litigation,” CNN reported. Court papers provided Monday show that some of those charged were confused about whether they were eligible to vote, The Guardian reported. Some of those charged had agreed to interviews with investigators and were applying to become naturalized citizens, who can legally vote, The Guardian reported.

The Justice Department on Monday filed criminal charges against 28 people in California, alleging that they illegally registered to vote and cast illegal ballots, United Press International reported. Those charged hold green cards, meaning that they are legal permanent residents of the United States who are not allowed to vote.

The charges include making false statements in a naturalization application and fraudulently signing up to vote, both felonies. The department alleged that 21 of those charged had cast ballots and that 11 of them have been taken into custody, The Guardian reported.

The voting sweep is part of the Trump administration’s campaign to stop alleged noncitizen voting, although data shows that the practice is extremely rare and has not been shown to affect races, according to UPI. The charges came after the department sued California on Thursday, seeking to block the state from counting the ballots of about 20,000 people it said could be noncitizens. Days before that filing, Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent state officials a flash drive that he said contained the names of those people and demanded they confirm they would review the information and segregate any possible ballots from them.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the Department of Homeland Security first alleged in July that “more than 190,000” registered voters in the state could be noncitizens but has since changed that to 20,000 without sharing any background on the claims. Weber said that treating the thousands of voters on the list “as ineligible until proven otherwise” would violate federal law.

On Friday, the Justice Department also warned local election officials in California that they can be investigated and prosecuted if they knowingly process noncitizen ballots.