Court Filing Questions Trump Administration Claims of Non-Citizen Voters in California

A new court filing in California has raised significant questions regarding the accuracy of a federal list identifying alleged non-citizen voters submitted by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. Submitted on Saturday by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), an advocacy group, the legal documents present a detailed analysis conducted by two data scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Voting Rights Project. The researchers concluded that more than four out of every ten names on the administration's list were entirely absent from California's active voter rolls, while thousands of eligible U.S. citizens were erroneously flagged as ineligible.

The controversial list, delivered to California election authorities in early October, alleged that as many as 20,930 registered individuals were "likely non-citizens." Based on those allegations, federal officials filed a lawsuit on October 15 demanding that California sequester any ballots cast by the named individuals to prevent them from being tallied alongside official voting results. However, the UCLA analysis revealed that 8,880 names—representing 42 percent of the total provided by federal authorities—were not found anywhere in California's current voter registry. Furthermore, many of the remaining names corresponded to confirmed or potential U.S. citizens who possess full voting rights.

The fresh evidence arrives following a major legal setback for federal authorities in the federal appellate court. On Friday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected the federal complaint for a second time, ruling that the effort to force state voting interventions was unconstitutional. In its ruling, the court majority emphasized adherence to the U.S. Constitution's Elections Clause, which places the administration of elections squarely under state authority unless regulated by Congress. The court majority stated, "We decline the United States’s invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution’s plain text."

The court filing was co-signed by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate running to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom. In the filing, researchers and legal advocates argued that federal demands accompanied by civil and criminal threats against state election officials place the constitutional rights of legitimate voters at risk. Under U.S. federal law, non-citizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections across all 50 states, and existing verification procedures make voter fraud exceedingly rare. Other states receiving similar lists from federal authorities reported comparable errors; state officials in Nevada, for example, determined after investigation that none of the names provided on their state list represented non-citizen voters.

The ongoing legal dispute comes during the final days ahead of pivotal midterm elections that will determine party control of the U.S. Congress, as well as key state and municipal offices. California, as the nation's most populous state, plays a prominent role in federal elections with 52 seats in the 435-member House of Representatives. As legal challenges continue, civil rights organizations maintain that flawed voter rolls threaten to disenfranchise legitimate voters while state election officials retain their sole constitutional mandate over ballot procedures.