Two weeks before midterms, Justice Department charges 28 in California with voting crimes
Prosecutors say the noncitizens registered or voted illegally. The department did not rule out charging election workers; California calls them an unprecedented suspension of voting rights.
Archive image · Photo: APK / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
The U.S. Justice Department has charged 28 people in California with unlawful voting and other election-related offenses. Officials said the defendants are noncitizens, some of them green card holders, accused of falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to register or vote. "This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections," Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social: "They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!"
All 28 appeared on a list of about 20,000 names the department gave California officials last week, NPR reported. The government has sued the state and asked a federal court on an emergency basis to stop California from processing ballots from people it calls likely noncitizens. McCotter did not rule out aiding-and-abetting cases against election workers. The department says it has charged 113 people in 20 states in the past seven weeks.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said the demands are "contrary to both federal and state law" and amount to "an unprecedented suspension — and even denial — of voting rights." Los Angeles County declined to open the flash drive it received, saying it did not consider the device secure. Experts say noncitizen voting is extremely rare. The defendants are presumed innocent.