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US DOJ Gives California 48-Hours to Review/Address List of Noncitizens Who Received Ballots
Justice department threatening legal action against California
By Katy Grimes, October 14, 2026 1:57 pm
The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday gave California officials 48 hours to review a list of alleged noncitizen voters or face legal action, according to two letters reviewed by Reuters, part of an unprecedented effort to find evidence of voter fraud ahead of next month’s elections, Reuters reported.
In the Oct. 13 letters, directed to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the Justice Department provided officials in Los Angeles County with a “password-protected thumb drive” with the names of people the federal government “believes are likely noncitizens” and were sent mail-in ballots from California.
“For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals’ vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined,” McCotter wrote.
Noncompliance could lead to the DOJ seeking “emergency relief.”
DOJ officials described the list as covering “thousands” of possible noncitizens statewide, not limited to LA County, and stated that only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections.
There are news reports stating that Logan is refusing to comply.
In December 2025, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division demanded un-redacted statewide voter registration lists from nearly all states and filed 31 federal lawsuits against 30 states plus Washington, D.C., seeking to compel production of the full data, including names, addresses, birthdates, driver’s license numbers, and partial or full Social Security numbers in many cases.
The Division sent requests for complete computerized statewide voter registration lists, and argued the data was needed to enforce the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and Civil Rights Act of 1960. The stated goals included verifying list maintenance, identifying potential noncitizens or other ineligible registrants (via cross-checks with DHS’s SAVE database and other federal systems), and preventing vote dilution.
This should come as no surprise. In July, the Justice Department sent letters to chief election officials in all 50 states warning they could face criminal prosecution if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls or cast ballots.
Approximately 16–18 states, predominantly Republican, voluntarily turned over the data. The rest largely resisted, producing a wave of litigation.
“The law is clear: states need to give us this information, so we can do our duty to protect American citizens from vote dilution,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Today’s filings show that regardless of which party is in charge of a particular state, the Department of Justice will firmly stand on the side of election integrity and transparency.”
According to the lawsuits, the Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with the enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which were designed by Congress to ensure that states have proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs. The Attorney General also has the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) at her disposal to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of the statewide voter registration lists.
UPDATE: At 5:21 pm Wednesday evening, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber issued a statement about the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand that she and LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan review and assess the list of noncitizens who received ballots for the upcoming November election.
Here is SOS Weber’s letter – she’s upset that the US DOJ gave her 48 hours to accomplish this, after more than 9 months to provide verified list maintenance, identified potential noncitizens or other ineligible registrants:
California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D., Issues Statement in Response to U.S. Department of Justice Letter
Sacramento, Calif. – Yesterday, the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office received a demand to review a list of an unknown number of people the “Federal Government believes are likely noncitizens”, but the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) did not provide the list to our office.
The USDOJ gave SOS 48 hours to obtain the list, investigate, and take action – just 21 days before the November 3 General Election. The Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder County/Clerk confirmed that the list was provided to their office on a protected thumb drive with the password indicated on a sticky note. Click here to view the U.S. DOJ Letter to LA County.
In July of this year, President Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullen made (still) unsubstantiated claims that California had 190,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls. Given the many high-profile examples of states purging US citizens from their voter rolls based on DHS/SAVE data, SOS immediately requested written information about their methodology and data sources to back up their claims. They refused and provided California with nothing.
Now the USDOJ, under threat of “emergency” litigation, demands that California blindly trust this administration without any evidence or legal authority to justify its request.
“The USDOJ’s relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states’ protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections,” said California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D. “California has robust state law requirements that only U.S. citizens can register to vote and that any non-eligible registrants are removed from the State’s voter rolls. My office and California election officials remain committed – as always – to ensuring a fair and smooth 2026 General Election.”
Click here to view the U.S. DOJ Letter to SOS.
The Globe will update this article as more information is available.
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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Shirley Weber (PhD) is full of bovine excrement!!!
Vote YES ON 39 and force these Democrats’ hand to reveal their records….
California elections are COMPLETELY CORRUPT!!!
I would love to see the fed’s issue warrants and lock up the entire Newsom administration in one spectacular round up. The ultimate cage match between crooks and citizens has begun.
I’m interested to see what these crooks do in response to the DOJ in this case. What we’re used to seeing is that they typically (as dishonest Dean Logan, L.A. County Registrar, is doing now, or Shirley Weber or her proxies) cross their arms and hold their breath until they turn blue.
Not sure that’s going to work out for them this time!
Only a few years ago many thought that this type of accountability was gone forever. Now California officials are between a proverbial rock and a hard place looking for a place to squirm to. By not going through these steps as prescribed by the DOJ, California’s midterm elections will be/could be called into question and invalidated. It has become almost impossible to determine what the “real” will of the people is here in California with how elections are currently being ran. I wonder what our government will look like come January if there is no duly elected slate of leaders?
Secretary of State Shirley Weber and LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan will just ignore the demand while the criminal Democrat thug mafia that controls California will send out their thug lawyers to fight the demand in every way possible while beleaguered California taxpayers pick up the tab.
There’s no doubt that Secretary of State Shirley Weber is a corrupt puppet for the criminal Democrat thug mafia, but have you seen her lately? It looks like Weber has transitioned into a large homely man? It’s what Democrats do? (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-09-26/endorsement-shirley-weber-for-secretary-of-state)
As for Dean Logan, the sketchy Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk for LA County, he has faced significant scrutiny and controversy throughout his career, particularly regarding election administration integrity and security. Prior to his LA tenure, as King County, Washington’s Registrar, he managed a disputed 2004 gubernatorial recount that resulted in the discovery of hundreds of previously uncounted ballots for the Democrat candidate in a tight campaign race and allegations of gross election mismanagement.
In 2008, the Democrat controlled LA County Board of Supervisors unanimously appointed him to the permanent position despite his lack of a college degree at the time and his involvement in the 2004 election controversy in Washington state. Republican candidate Dino Rossi initially appeared headed for victory. However, after a series of recounts, Democrat Christine Gregoire was certified as governor-elect, despite trailing in two machine tabulations. Gregoire ultimately prevailed in an unprecedented hand recount of nearly 2.9 million ballots, winning the race by just 129 votes.
Logan has been at the center of multiple high-profile election controversies in LA County. In 2008 nearly 50,000 “decline-to-state” voters’ ballots were initially uncounted due to a ballot design flaw, prompting calls for his resignation. In 2022, he faced legal challenges from the George Gascón recall effort, where opponents accused his office of improperly invalidating signatures and restricting observer access. His oversight of the $282 million Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) system in partnership with Smartmatic drew criticism from security experts who identified digital and physical vulnerabilities that could potentially allow unauthorized access or software alteration. The county-owned system debuted countywide in 2020, replacing aging voting equipment with touchscreen ballot-marking devices and a network of voting centers throughout Los Angeles County. The partnership later received national attention after Smartmatic became the subject of election-fraud allegations following the 2020 presidential election.
Questions about the slow pace of ballot counting in LA County emerged during California’s 2022 primary election when LA County took weeks to finalize results and several races remained unresolved long after voting ended. Similar complaints resurfaced during the 2024 election cycle. California Post visited LA County’s 144,000-square-foot ballot processing facility during the vote count and observed numerous empty workstations and large sections of the operation sitting unused while more than 700,000 ballots remained outstanding.
Dean Logan is shady and he needs to be removed for gross incompetence and Democrat election meddling.
Appreciate so much all of this good information TJ.
Universal mail-in ballots are a very leaky, inaccurate system. A disturbing thing just happened.
We just got a sample ballot at our address with another person’s name on it – online name search reveals this could be a young Hispanic student at the local university. But she used our home address as her ballot registration mailing address. Also on the sample ballot was her voting precinct and polling place which in fact is a college dorm address at this same university. The college dorm address is over ten miles away from her alleged home address (fake) to which this sample ballot was sent
No, she could never have lived here since as a college student she was probably not even born before we lived at this address and now be old enough to vote. Did she need to create a fake address for her registration?
What gives its that? Taking this to county elections to get an explanation. Did she lie? Did someone else fill out her registration form (for cash?) Was this a clerical error in the elections office when this sample ballot was printed out. What it just sloppy – mistakes happen? There is nothing similar about any names of the address owners and her name
Or is this part of a sinister plot to harvest a later ballot for this person, since this college town precinct is part of a long history of dodgy, long counts and somehow always in just enough Democrats votes in close races.
Any help that can clarify what could have led to this disturbing and material voter indentification error in this current state of perfectly rotten voter and election security?
Jaye, please keep me posted, and let me know if I can do anything: katy@californiaglobe.com