Newsom spars with Trump-appointed prosecutor over 20,000 suspected noncitizens on voter rolls

A dispute over how California confirms that voters are citizens turned into a public feud this week between Governor Gavin Newsom's office and federal prosecutor Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee. At issue is a Justice Department suit seeking checks on more than 20,000 people Washington deems probable noncitizens who were mailed ballots for this year's midterms. The department's complaint says federal immigration officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services matched California's registration files to immigration data to identify them, according to Fox News.

Essayli highlighted a filing from Monica Flores, a Los Angeles County election official, who stated that the registrar cannot verify citizenship, because beyond what voters attest, it holds no such information. Essayli described this as a "massive concession" and argued that citizens' votes are diluted.

Newsom's press office replied on X that the state follows a 1993 federal law under which DMV registrants swear, under penalty of perjury, to being eligible citizens, with comparable attestation on federal mail-in forms. It mocked Essayli's grasp of election law and suggested a demotion in title. Essayli countered by citing two federal statutes against noncitizen voting.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →