Federal judge halts noncitizen voting probes in nine states, LA registrar admits no way to verify citizenship of 20000 flagged voters, DOJ charges 28 while attestation remains the only check

Images

Federal judge orders Trump administration to halt noncitizen voting investigation in 9 states – WTOP News wtop.com

zerohedge.com

A federal judge in Oakland has ordered the Trump administration to halt its noncitizen-voter investigations in nine states until polls close on Nov. 3, finding the effort relies on error-riddled data and is intimidating groups doing voter assistance work. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin's ruling covers California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin; it was stayed until Friday to allow an appeal. The suit was brought by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County.

The ruling landed the same week Los Angeles County's election officials made a quieter admission in federal court. Assistant Registrar Monica Flores stated the office is "not equipped or authorized" to verify voter citizenship beyond the voter's own sworn statement, because it does not house immigration, travel or naturalization records. The county is sitting on a federal list of 20,000 suspected noncitizen registrants. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli called the admission a "massive concession" on X and noted that California has neither acted on the list nor agreed to set aside the ballots. Governor Gavin Newsom's office counters that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act permits reliance on sworn statements — which is precisely the point: the attestation is the verification.

The Justice Department sued California last week demanding the 20,000 ballots be segregated pending checks. On Monday, federal agents arrested 28 foreign nationals in California on charges of illegal voting and false citizenship claims, with Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter announcing the charges in Los Angeles. Essayli wrote that the arrests prove the list is accurate — and that the other 19,972 remain unaccounted for. The administration's own investigations have shown noncitizen voting is rare, while the administration publicly signals it is a major problem.

The structural fact underneath the noise: states run elections, but the registration systems are built on self-attestation, and no level of government owns a working verification mechanism. A judge can stop the door-knocking until after the election; she cannot create a citizenship check that does not exist. The case overseeing United States v. State of California was transferred Wednesday from a Trump-appointed judge to Judge David Carter, a Clinton appointee who dismissed last year's DOJ suit over California's voter-roll maintenance.