Legal filing questions Trump’s claims of non-citizen voting in California

What the report says

A new court filing has intensified scrutiny of the Trump administration’s claim that large numbers of non-citizens are registered to vote in California. According to Al Jazeera, the filing was submitted Saturday by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and includes an analysis by two UCLA data scientists. Their review concluded that more than 40 percent of the names on the administration’s list were not found in California voter records, and that many others appeared to be U.S. citizens or possible matches to citizens.

The list at issue was sent to California in early October and reportedly identified up to 20,930 “likely non-citizens.” It became the basis for a lawsuit filed October 15 seeking to have ballots linked to those names set aside and not counted. The dispute comes just days before Tuesday’s midterm elections, when voters will decide control of Congress and many state and local offices.

Al Jazeera reported that critics, including Governor Gavin Newsom, argue election administration is a state responsibility under the U.S. Constitution. The article also noted that all states already bar non-citizens from voting in federal elections and that fraud is considered rare. Similar lists sent to other states have also drawn questions about accuracy, including in Nevada, where officials found none of the names were non-citizen voters.

The filing adds to an ongoing legal fight in federal court, where the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently rejected the administration’s effort to revive the case. The dispute matters because errors in voter-screening lists could risk disenfranchising eligible citizens if states act on flawed data.