WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Oct. 15 sued California over its allegations that the state has potentially thousands of non-citizens on its voter rolls, escalating its multi-pronged campaign to intervene in the upcoming midterm elections.
On Oct. 13, DOJ had given the state 48 hours to take steps to prevent alleged noncitizen voters in Los Angeles County from voting, or or face legal action, Reuters reported. The news service reported Thursday that the Justice Department now has asked a federal judge to block the state from counting mail ballots for the November elections from more than 20,000 voters that the Trump administration alleges are likely non-citizens.
Elections officials from the State of California and the county of Los
Angeles have pushed back on the effort.
Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan issued a statement saying that DOJ had received a letter Oct. 13 that included a USB drive "purportedly containing the referenced records, along with a handwritten note providing a password."
Logan said county officials had not accessed the thumb drive because doing so "would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols."
This is a developing story and will be updated.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DOJ sues California over alleged non-citizens on voter rolls
