On October 13, 2026, Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter wrote to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan about a password-protected thumb drive the department had given the county, containing names of people the administration “believes are likely noncitizens” who were sent mail ballots, CNN reported. “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, according to CBS News. He gave the officials 48 hours and warned that otherwise the department would “have no choice but to seek emergency relief.”
The letters do not explain how the list was built or how many names it contains, Politico reported. A Justice Department spokesperson said, “This should not be controversial, as the criminal statute is clear: only American citizens may vote in federal elections.” Experts told the Los Angeles Times the demand is “legally questionable,” noting that similar federal lists in other states proved highly inaccurate. In Nevada, DHS cut an initial claim of 15,900 noncitizen registrants to 185 it said it had confirmed, which Nevada officials disputed, CNN reported (see DHS Claims 250,000 Noncitizens Are Registered to Vote in Four States. Fact-Checkers and the States Say the Number Is Wildly Inflated.). Los Angeles County confirmed receiving the letter, which comes with ballots already mailed out.
Update (October 17, 2026): California did not comply. “We cannot withhold or refuse to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations,” Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said, and Secretary of State Shirley Weber called it “an emergency of the DOJ's creation.” Attorney General Rob Bonta noted the number of flagged registrants had dropped from the 190,000 DHS flagged over the summer to about 20,000: “What happened to those 170,000? They just got those wrong.” On October 15 the Justice Department sued in United States v. California, describing “a list of over 20,000 names” and seeking an injunction against counting those ballots. In an October 16 letter, McCotter warned that anyone who knowingly tabulates such ballots risks “becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.” That evening Trump shared coverage of the letter on Truth Social with the comment: “They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”
Update (October 20, 2026): on October 19 the Justice Department asked the court for a temporary restraining order, calling its list “the floor” and saying immigration authorities had flagged a separate batch of more than 17,000 voting records. California responded that the 28 people the department charged the same day (see The Justice Department Charges 28 Green Card Holders in California, Saying All Are on Its 20,000-Name Ballot List) “represent approximately .0001 percent of the registered voters (~23 million) in California.” Los Angeles County told the court that in a sample of the names on the list, “25.8% of the sampled voters record a place of birth in the United States,” and 71.2 percent had never voted. No hearing date or ruling had been set as of October 20. At a Kansas rally on October 19 Trump said, “the cheating is getting harder,” and, “A lot of people going to go to jail.”
Update (October 21, 2026): a Los Angeles County declaration says that among sampled records with a meaningful birthplace, 38.9 percent listed the United States, NPR and the Guardian reported, and that only 7,035 of the more than 20,000 names have county addresses. Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter said on October 19, “There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens,” and, “We're not perfect,” CalMatters reported. A Justice Department spokesperson told the Guardian, “Just because an alien says on a form that they are a citizen doesn't make them eligible to vote.” The case was assigned to Judge John W. Holcomb on October 20 and transferred on October 21 to Judge David O. Carter (corrected October 27; see the correction below); no ruling had been issued as of October 21.
Update (October 27, 2026): On October 26 a Ninth Circuit panel dismissed the Justice Department's emergency appeal, 2-1, in a published per curiam order. The department “failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application” for a temporary restraining order, the court said, so “we lack jurisdiction over this appeal.” It added, “The United States's claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one.” The order decided no merits question and set aside no ballots.
Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, each wrote that they would have denied the request anyway; Bennett said the department “has offered no workable plan of any kind” to do what it asked without “potential catastrophic consequences to California's ongoing election.” Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, dissented, writing that “the federal government has a sovereign interest in safeguarding federal elections and ensuring that the votes of noncitizens do not undermine our electoral results.”
The case returns to Judge David O. Carter, who set a hearing on the department's restraining-order application for 1 p.m. Pacific on October 27; its outcome was not known when this update was written. Speaking to reporters after voting on October 24, Trump said of Los Angeles, “they have 20,000 votes, and it could be as high as a million votes,” and, as the South China Morning Post quoted him, “The US attorney found potentially hundreds of thousands of illicit votes.” He did not say which U.S. attorney or what the figures rested on.
Correction: the October 21 update said the case had been reassigned to Judge John W. Holcomb. It was assigned to him on October 20, but on October 21 it was transferred to Judge Carter as related to an earlier case (Dkt. 46); that sentence has been corrected.
Update (October 28, 2026): Judge Carter heard the department's restraining-order application on October 27 and did not rule by the end of the hearing. He said he intends to appoint a special master to examine how the department compiled its list, ABC News reported, and the AP reported that he said a special master could evaluate both sides' claims, including whether counties could separate the ballots, before the state's December 11 certification deadline. He said he would not issue an official order until October 28. Carter described what the department sought as a “monumental change” in California's ongoing administration of its election, ABC reported.
Questioning why the government was suing rather than prosecuting, Carter said, “You got a remedy for goodness sakes — go out and indict,” the AP reported. Closing the hearing, he said, “This court believes it would be wise that any threats to state and county election employees cease immediately.” Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles (see Federal Judge Rules Trump's Top Los Angeles Prosecutor Is 'Unlawfully Serving' and Bars Him From Two Cases), told the court, “We have not asked to void any ballots,” and, “We want to stop the illegal voting.” More than 3 million ballots had already been returned, and California says returned ballots are separated from the envelopes that identify voters. The AP also reported that the department made a similar request this week asking Washington state to sequester ballots submitted by hundreds of people it suspects are not citizens.
Update (October 29, 2026): On October 28 Judge Carter denied the department's application for a temporary restraining order in a 26-page written order (Dkt. 149). He found that the United States had not shown a likelihood of success on the merits or that it would suffer irreparable harm without immediate relief, and that the public interest favors the protection of voting rights. “Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” he wrote.
The requested relief, Carter wrote, “would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.” He added that “a ballot segregated, in effect, would be a ballot removed,” and, “Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,” concluding, “This Court declines to be a party to such process.” On the department's warnings to election officials, he repeated what he had said at the hearing, that these “threats must stop.” The order notes the department has filed at least 31 suits seeking states' full voter rolls and has won none of the 26 decided (see Trump's DOJ Is Now 0-for-26 on Voter Roll Lawsuits, Losing Every Resolved Case for Access to States' Voter Rolls).
The order appointed no special master. At the October 27 hearing Carter had said he intended to appoint one (see the October 28 update); the AP reported that his written order “appeared to reverse course, and he did not establish one.” The department filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit that evening (Dkt. 152) and a renewed request for an injunction pending appeal (Dkt. 153). Essayli wrote on social media, “This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution.” More than 3.7 million Californians had already voted, and court filings show more than 500,000 ballots had been processed, the AP reported.
Update (October 30, 2026): The Justice Department has subpoenaed Los Angeles County election staff. The AP obtained three subpoenas sent October 21 and October 24 to employees of the county Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on November 4, the day after the election, and seeking documents and communications about the July and October federal letters on alleged noncitizens and about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted. A letter with one says it was issued “in connection with an official criminal investigation being conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations.” A person familiar with the matter told the AP that all four U.S. attorneys in California were issuing subpoenas; the AP said it is unclear whether the department intends to bring charges.
The New York Post, citing the New York Times, reported that the three are the office's executive liaison, assistant registrar-recorder/county clerk and records custodian, ordered to the federal courthouse in Santa Ana, and that the subpoenas seek records of communications among Secretary of State Shirley Weber, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and McCotter. Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said his office received a subpoena seeking unredacted registration records for 60 people, the Post reported, citing the Orange County Register. Logan said, “threats and intimidation have no place in elections.”
On October 29, a day after his written order appointed no special master, Judge Carter appointed one, Daniel B. Garrie (Dkt. 159). The order sets an expedited hearing at 10 a.m. on November 13 on the motions to dismiss and the department's motion for a preliminary injunction, and requires witness lists by November 6 on “the reliability of the October List and the methodology Plaintiff used to produce it.” Carter said Garrie would be tasked with “developing the factual record,” and he will rule on the department's renewed request after that hearing, the AP reported. The department had asked the Ninth Circuit to rule quickly because of “irreversible ballot processing occurring on an ongoing basis,” the AP reported; no ruling on its application for an injunction pending appeal (Dkt. 153) appeared on the district docket as of October 29.
Trump told reporters on October 29, “California is very corrupt. The elections are extremely corrupt. The judge should not have done that but we'll appeal that, of course,” the AP reported.
Update (October 31, 2026): On October 30 a Ninth Circuit panel refused, 2-1, the department's renewed request to stop California from counting the ballots, Democracy Docket, NBC News and the Guardian reported. Judges Mark J. Bennett and Gabriel P. Sanchez wrote for the majority, “We decline the United States's invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution's plain text,” and, “As the district court found—and we discern no clear error—there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system.” Democracy Docket reported that they found the request likely violates the National Voter Registration Act's bar on systematic voter purges within 90 days of an election. Judge Patrick J. Bumatay dissented, calling the department's proposal “a modest remedy.” The tracker has not reviewed the order itself; these quotations are as the outlets report them. Democracy Docket said the department is expected to seek Supreme Court review; no such filing had been confirmed when this update was written.
On October 31 the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), in its separate suit against DHS, filed an analysis by two members of UCLA's Voting Rights Project of the 20,930 names on the department's list, the AP reported. It found that 8,880 of the names, 42 percent, “do not correspond to anyone in California's current voter file,” and that at least 22 are U.S. citizens; applying the government's methodology, the researchers found nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens were “highly likely” to be incorrectly flagged. These are names on the list, not ballots. The AP called it the first outside analysis of the list, made possible because a judge ordered the administration on October 30 to share it with the plaintiffs. The filing is an advocacy group's and was cosigned by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for governor and an adviser to the project.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,” Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels wrote in an email to the AP. “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.” Trump wrote on October 31 that his Justice Department had found “20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions,” of fraudulent votes, “and the Court has just ruled against it. Why would they reject fixing Election Fraud?” the AP reported. Separately, on October 30 a federal judge in the Northern District of California barred the Justice Department and DHS from demanding that officials anywhere segregate such ballots or threatening them with prosecution (see Judge Bars the Justice Department and DHS From Threatening Election Workers Over Ballots of Voters Flagged as Noncitizens).
Update (November 1, 2026): The Los Angeles Times reported on October 31 that the administration “missed a deadline for requesting that the three-judge panel's ruling be revisited by the full appellate court” and “made no immediate appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court,” and that neither the Justice Department nor Essayli's office responded to its requests for comment. That is one outlet's account as of October 31. The tracker has not confirmed it on a docket and found no report of a Supreme Court filing as of November 1.
The Washington Examiner, reporting on the 41-page October 30 decision, quoted the majority as saying the relief risked “the disenfranchisement of eligible voters and putting the entire tabulation process in jeopardy,” and Judge Bumatay in dissent, “This solution would not cancel any vote but would allow time to verify the eligibility of suspected noncitizens.” The Examiner wrote that the denial left the department able to seek emergency Supreme Court intervention before the election.
Update (November 2, 2026): The Supreme Court on November 2 denied the Justice Department's emergency request to make California set aside the ballots, hours after Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed it and on the eve of the election. The application went to Justice Elena Kagan, who referred it to the full Court. “The application for injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied,” the one-line order said, as the Los Angeles Times quoted it. The Court gave no reasons, there were no noted dissents, and it did not ask California to respond first, CNBC and NBC News reported. This supersedes the November 1 note that no Supreme Court filing had been found. Just Security's litigation tracker still lists Judge Carter's November 13 hearing.
Sauer told the Court, “In this case, this Office has been informed that the United States has identified more than 20,000 individuals who appear to be registered to vote in California based on publicly available information at the time that information was received, but who, in the United States' view, are likely not U.S. citizens,” CNBC reported. He argued, “Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back.” More than 6.4 million California ballots had been cast as of Sunday and were being counted, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing the secretary of state's office. Shortly before the ruling, Essayli said intervention had to be prompt: “The time for action is now.” Attorney General Rob Bonta said, “This latest decision should put an end to the Administration's attempt to disrupt California's elections through emergency court orders.” The White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to NBC's requests for comment.
The same day, in a separate suit by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and others (Trujillo v. DHS, No. 1:26-cv-03072-JEB), Chief Judge James Boasberg ordered the government “not to issue demands to California election officials seeking to compel the segregation of ballots, or other deviations from existing state elections procedures, based on voters' inclusion on the lists of suspected non-citizens,” according to Just Security's tracker, which records the order as a preliminary injunction; Boasberg's opinion that day in DSCC v. Trump calls it a TRO. The tracker has not read the order itself. “California may decide for itself what procedures to use for verifying the citizenship of registered voters,” he wrote, Reuters reported, adding, “The Executive Branch lacks authority to unilaterally impose its preferred procedures.” Reuters said he found the lists flawed, with many people wrongly listed as noncitizens.
In the separate case before Judge Thompson (see Judge Bars the Justice Department and DHS From Threatening Election Workers Over Ballots of Voters Flagged as Noncitizens), the Los Angeles Times and CNBC, citing MS NOW, reported that a Justice Department lawyer acknowledged a “high error rate” in the lists. Law Dork reported that Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Kao, answering a question from Thompson, said it would be “fair” to characterize the list that way. CNBC reported that the lawyer also argued the errors show why election officials need to examine their rolls. The tracker has not seen a transcript.