LA County Examines DOJ List of Voter Registrations Flagged as Likely Noncitizens

Los Angeles County recently took a hard look at a batch of names the Department of Justice handed over last month. The DOJ’s spreadsheet flags roughly 20,000 people on voter rolls as "likely" noncitizens, and the county’s registrar decided to pull a random sample of 200 to see what the reality looks like.

What came back was a bit of a mixed bag. Of the 200 records, 112 turned out to be either cancelled registrations or simply inactive – meaning they weren’t on the mailing list for this year’s ballot at all. The remaining 86 individuals were still listed as active voters and did receive mailed ballots.

But here’s the kicker: when the county crunched the numbers, it found that a whopping 71.2 % of those 86 active registrants had never cast a vote in the most recent election. In other words, they’re on the books, they got a ballot, but they never showed up at the poll.

The registrar’s office explained that they can’t just go and pull up a federal citizenship database to confirm who is or isn’t a citizen. Their only tool is the oath every voter swears when they sign up – a promise that they are indeed a U.S. citizen. “We don’t have direct access to federal citizenship data,” the filing said, “so we rely on the self‑declaration made at registration.”

California’s Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, who’s currently campaigning for re‑election, weighed in on the controversy. She reminded the public that California law already requires that only U.S. citizens be on the voter rolls, and that any ineligible registrants are supposed to be removed. “We have robust state‑law requirements,” she said in a statement last week.

When asked whether voters can trust that noncitizens are being weeded out, Weber didn’t give a straight yes or no. Instead, she stressed that her office shares the DOJ’s “commitment to ensuring only eligible persons vote,” while also vowing to protect lawful voters from being disenfranchised by over‑zealous actions.

The DOJ, meanwhile, is pressing a federal judge to order California and the LA County registrar to set aside any ballots tied to the names on its list until citizenship can be verified. The request underscores a growing tension between federal oversight and state election administration.

As the legal wrangle unfolds, the county says it will continue to review additional records from the DOJ list, hoping to strike a balance between safeguarding election integrity and preserving every eligible voter’s right to cast a ballot.