A dispute over ballots tied to a federal list of more than 20,000 people the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) describes as likely noncitizens has brought grand jury subpoenas to two California county election offices. Officials in Santa Clara and Sonoma counties told CBS News their offices received the subpoenas ahead of the Tuesday, Nov. 3, midterm election; Bloomberg Law also identified both counties as recipients.
CBS News reported that Sonoma County’s subpoena sought information about an individual whom DOJ alleged may have voted in a previous election. CBS News also reported that the subpoena sought records on the county’s response to federal demands to segregate ballots. A person familiar with Santa Clara County’s subpoena told CBS it covered similar material. Bloomberg Law separately reported that the subpoenas sought information about people alleged to have registered without U.S. citizenship and county procedures for checking voters’ citizenship.
The subpoenas came amid a lawsuit DOJ filed Oct. 15. The department alleged that federal agencies had identified more than 20,000 California voters as likely noncitizens and asked a court to require the state to set aside mail ballots associated with people on its list until their citizenship could be checked. DOJ described its analysis as preliminary and said its review was continuing. The allegations are not a court finding that anyone on the list was a noncitizen or voted unlawfully.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied DOJ’s emergency request to set aside the ballots on Monday, Nov. 2. In a separate case, the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday, Nov. 3, reinstated a stay, pausing a lower-court order that had limited DOJ’s ballot-segregation requests and prosecution warnings while an appeal proceeded.
Sonoma County Counsel Joshua Myers told CBS News there was “no legal basis for the federal government’s requests for Sonoma County to segregate ballots.” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said his office was evaluating the subpoena. Local officials have questioned the list’s accuracy and raised the risk that eligible voters could be wrongly excluded. Bloomberg Law reported that subpoena responses are due Nov. 17.
