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WASHINGTON, October 17, 2026: The US Justice Department has warned Los Angeles County and California election officials that they could face legal liability if they knowingly count mail-in ballots cast by people the Trump administration suspects of being noncitizens.
The warning concerns more than 20,000 people whom federal authorities believe may not be US citizens. It comes less than three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections and follows a federal lawsuit seeking to prevent California from counting the disputed ballots.
Acting US Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter issued the warning in a letter released Friday. He urged Los Angeles County and California officials to reconsider their refusal to take action against the individuals identified by the administration.
“Noncitizen voting in a federal election is a federal crime — and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful,” McCotter wrote.
President Donald Trump shared the letter on Truth Social and warned that officials could face prison sentences.
“They will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!” Trump wrote.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan were copied on the letter. The county counsel’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute escalated after the Justice Department gave California officials 48 hours to review a list of alleged noncitizen voters or face possible legal action.
In an earlier letter, McCotter said federal authorities had provided Los Angeles County officials with a password-protected thumb drive containing names of people the government believed were likely noncitizens who had received California mail-in ballots.
According to the Justice Department, the list was compiled using internal immigration records and data matching.
However, Los Angeles County Counsel Dawyn R Harrison said Thursday that the county could not comply with the request because the federal government had not explained how it compiled the list.
Weber’s office referred Reuters to an earlier statement opposing the administration’s efforts to obtain protected voter data.
The secretary of state’s office said the Justice Department’s attempts 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.”
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The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against California on Thursday seeking to block the state from counting the disputed ballots.
The dispute is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to examine voter registration records across the United States.
In July, Trump said his administration had uncovered evidence of more than 275,000 noncitizens registered to vote. However, it remained unclear how many of those individuals had actually cast ballots.
Since then, the Justice Department has increased prosecutions of people accused of voting illegally without US citizenship.
The White House has also pushed federal agencies to accelerate reviews of at least 47 state voter rolls obtained by the Department of Homeland Security, according to an internal email reviewed by Reuters.
Noncitizens are generally prohibited from voting in federal elections under US law. However, the number of people who actually cast ballots illegally remains a separate question from the number of individuals identified in registration records.
Studies have found that noncitizen voting in US elections is exceedingly uncommon.
In addition, past efforts to verify citizenship have mistakenly flagged some naturalised US citizens as noncitizens, raising concerns about the accuracy of voter data matching and the potential removal of eligible voters.
The dispute now centres on whether federal authorities have provided sufficient evidence to justify action against the individuals identified on the list, and how state and county officials should respond before the November 3 elections.
The case could further intensify the legal and political debate over federal authority, voter privacy and election administration in the run-up to the midterms.
