President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform to issue a chilling warning to a deep-blue sanctuary state as early voting for midterm elections begins.
Trump is threatening California election officials with jail as the Justice Department escalates a legal battle over thousands of people the administration says are likely noncitizens who received mail-in ballots ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
“They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social while sharing a Justice Department letter warning Los Angeles County officials about potential criminal consequences.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told Los Angeles County officials that knowingly processing ballots from noncitizens could expose election workers to investigation and prosecution because noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal.
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“The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime are significant,” McCotter wrote.
The warning followed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to prevent California from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 people the federal government says are likely noncitizens until their citizenship can be verified.
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The administration says Homeland Security Investigations compared publicly available California voter-registration information with federal immigration records using several data-matching and verification methods.
Federal officials then provided Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive containing names of individuals believed to be likely noncitizens who had been mailed ballots and asked California officials to review their eligibility.
The government asked election officials to set aside any returned ballots associated with people whose citizenship could not be confirmed until their eligibility was determined, but California officials declined to take the requested action.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber disputed the administration’s claims and said federal officials had not provided her office with sufficient information about how the list was compiled.
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Weber said California already requires voters to be U.S. citizens and has procedures for removing ineligible registrants, while accusing the administration of attempting to create “chaos” and undermine public confidence in elections.
Los Angeles County Counsel Dawyn Harrison similarly said county officials could not comply without more information about the methodology federal agencies used to identify the suspected noncitizens.
The dispute over the 20,000 names follows a broader administration claim that approximately 190,832 potential noncitizens could be registered to vote in California, although federal officials have not publicly released enough underlying information to independently verify that estimate.
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DHS previously said a preliminary review identified as many as 256,000 potential noncitizens on voter rolls across California, New Jersey, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with California accounting for the overwhelming majority.
Those figures identify potential matches rather than confirmed cases of illegal voting, and the administration has not claimed that all of the individuals identified actually cast ballots.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the California lawsuit is intended to prevent illegal votes from being included in federal election totals and warned that proven violations could damage confidence in the electoral system.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin similarly argued that even a single illegal ballot can dilute the lawful vote of an American citizen, while emphasizing that the federal review remains ongoing.
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California officials strongly reject the administration’s characterization, with Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the lawsuit a politically motivated attempt to interfere with voting weeks before Election Day.
The underlying issue is complicated by previous cases in which citizenship-verification systems have incorrectly identified naturalized American citizens as possible noncitizens, making additional verification important before voters are removed from registration lists.
Audits in other states have nevertheless identified confirmed cases of noncitizens registering and, in smaller numbers, casting ballots, including reviews conducted in Ohio, Louisiana and Iowa.
Iowa officials, for example, identified 277 confirmed noncitizens who were registered and determined that 35 cast ballots counted in the 2024 election, while Louisiana identified 390 registered noncitizens and said 79 had voted in at least one election.
This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
