Chapter 1
The federal government is checking registered voters’ citizenship ahead…
The federal government is checking registered voters’ citizenship ahead of the 3 November election through three separate efforts, and each is before a different court. They are easily run together, and so are their numbers. A voter flagged by a federal check is not a voter removed from the rolls, a ballot set aside, or a person found to be a noncitizen. The figures in the cases so far are of voters flagged.
Chapter 2
The longest-running is the expanded SAVE system
The longest-running is the expanded SAVE system, which lets states check registered voters’ citizenship against federal records. A lower court struck it down. On 25 September the Supreme Court stayed that order, so the system stays available while the appeal runs; its unsigned opinion said the challengers’ claims “likely lack merit”. It also noted that federal law bars systematic changes to voter rolls within ninety days of an election, so only individual checks are possible before November. Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented, citing voters in Texas whose registrations had been wrongly questioned, though she expected “minimal short-term impact”.
Chapter 3
The second was the Justice Department’s own collection of state voter…
The second was the Justice Department’s own collection of state voter rolls. It asked 49 states and the District of Columbia for complete voter lists, had them checked against a federal citizenship database, and pressed states to remove the voters flagged; at least 18 states complied. On 9 October federal judge Sparkle Sooknanan vacated the policy. She found no statute authorised it and wrote that it “has removed United States citizens from the voter rolls”. CBS News and The Hill report the ruling applies nationwide, including to files the department already held. States may still maintain their own rolls, and the department said it was reviewing the ruling.
Chapter 4
The third moves from the rolls to the ballots
The third moves from the rolls to the ballots. On 15 October the United States sued California, its secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar in federal court in Los Angeles, asking for an injunction barring the state from counting mail ballots in federal races from people the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens, until their citizenship is verified. The complaint alleges more than 20,000 such people are registered, many in Los Angeles County, and that the county refused the list. Its one legal claim is that the federal law making noncitizen voting a crime overrides California’s mail-voting rules. On 28 October Judge David O. Carter refused the department’s request to hold those ballots back while the case runs, finding it likely had no standing, that the remedy would breach the federal bar on systematic removals within ninety days of an election, and that he could not conclude its matching process was credible; the department appealed. The government’s declarations describe the list as a purchased state voter file matched against federal records with commercial data.
Chapter 5
What is unresolved is whether any of this reaches a ballot
What is unresolved is whether any of this reaches a ballot. The California ballots are being counted while the department appeals, its appeal of the voter-roll ruling is pending, and the same demand has gone to Washington state, which refused. Where a federal flag has been tested against state records, most of those named have proved to be citizens: all 185 in Nevada, and 52 of 60 in Arizona’s largest county. No count of voters found to be noncitizens, as distinct from flagged, has been produced in any of the three federal cases.
And now
A federal judge has refused to let the Justice Department hold back California ballots. On 28 October Judge David O. Carter denied its request to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 people it calls likely noncitizens. He found the department likely has no standing, that the remedy would breach the federal bar on systematic removals so close to an election, and that he “cannot conclude” its matching is credible. Its remedy, he wrote, is to indict individuals. The department appealed that evening. Two days earlier an appeals court had thrown out its first, premature appeal.
The government’s own filings say the list began with a voter file it bought in May, matched against federal records with LexisNexis data. Los Angeles County says 38.9% of a sample that recorded a birthplace listed the United States. USCIS disputes that but concedes four on the list may be citizens.
The department has now asked Washington to set aside about 400 ballots, and the secretary of state refused. In Arizona, Maricopa County restored 25 SAVE-flagged voters found to be citizens. An immigrant-rights group has asked a Washington, D.C., court to halt the federal campaign.
Where it stands today →