The Justice Department gave California until Oct 15 to set aside mail ballots it says went to noncitizens. Will it sue the state by Oct 20?
50% of users predicted YES — the community got this one right. 8 predictions cast.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued California on October 15, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking to bar the state from counting mail ballots cast by voters the federal government has flagged as likely noncitizens ahead of the November midterms. The suit followed a dispute over a password-protected thumb drive the DOJ sent California containing roughly 20,000 names it said belonged to likely noncitizens on the voter rolls. Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan said the device did not meet the county's security standards for handling such data, and the DOJ said California missed a 48-hour deadline to review the list. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber rejected the allegation as unsupported, pointing to a similar federal claim in Nevada that turned out to involve U.S. citizens. The lawsuit asks a judge to enjoin California from tabulating the flagged ballots until citizenship can be verified.
The filing came amid a broader run of federal challenges to state voter-roll practices ahead of the midterms, including a Florida ruling striking down a related noncitizen-voting law. The community's pre-resolution odds sat at 50 percent, splitting evenly on whether the DOJ would follow through by the deadline.