Big assertions, sharp exchanges, little clarity define DOJ election battle with California
This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.
See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.
Set us as preferred First came the letter from acting Deputy Atty.Gen.
Trent McCotter — just three weeks before the Nov.3 election — demanding that Los Angeles County’s top elections official launch a sweeping investigation into thousands of voters the Trump administration alleges are “likely noncitizens” and withhold their ballots in the meantime.The letter arrived with a thumb drive purporting to contain the list of voters in question, and a handwritten note providing the password.
Dean Logan, head of the L.A.County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, said accessing the device broke security protocols, and he wouldn’t open it.Then came an Excel spreadsheet, listing some 20,000 voters by name, date of birth and address.
It appeared to contain voters from across the state of California, not just L.A.County, and provided no information on the Trump administration’s methodology for questioning those voters.
Logan’s office again pushed back.“We cannot withhold or refuse to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations, nor can we disregard the legal requirements governing our election — and we certainly have no authority to act on records that are outside of our jurisdiction,” Logan said.On Friday, the back and forth escalated yet again, when the Justice Department warned in a letter to L.A.County attorneys that county elections officials who tabulate ballots from the flagged voters could face criminal prosecution for being “aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”For the last week, Trump administration officials and California election leaders have been locked in a fiercely contentious standoff over alleged election fraud that independent elections experts say is like nothing they have ever seen before.
Politics The Trump administration asked a federal court to bar California from cou...