Over 40% of Names on DOJ Noncitizen List Not on California Voter Rolls
A data analysis filed in federal court on Saturday revealed that more than 40 percent of the names flagged by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as alleged noncitizen voters in California do not appear on the state’s official voter rolls. The findings—compiled by researchers from the UCLA Voting Rights Project and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA)—mark the first independent evaluation of a government database used by federal authorities to pressure local election officials ahead of the midterm elections.
According to expert filings submitted to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, 8,880 of the 21,000 names provided by the federal government—roughly 42 percent—do not correspond to active or inactive records in California’s voter registration database. According to an official news report published by AP News, researchers also identified confirmed U.S. citizens on the list, including naturalized voters and individuals who marked the U.S. as their place of birth.
The independent audit was made possible after a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to share its underlying list with civil rights groups suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over its data-matching methodologies. Local election officials and civil rights attorneys contend that the federal initiative relies on flawed data cross-referencing, noting that whistleblower disclosures within DHS recently warned that the matching protocols knowingly risk sweeping in naturalized citizens.
While federal prosecutors defended the enforcement action as necessary to protect election integrity and prevent ineligible voting, state officials reiterated that federal law prohibits purging or setting aside ballots immediately before an election without conduct of individual, due-process investigations. In response to the findings, DOJ attorneys filed court motions seeking sanctions against the plaintiffs’ legal team, arguing that publishing public voter roll comparisons violated judicial standing guidelines.
