“At best, this litigation is a reckless political stunt,” the state wrote in Tuesday’s filing. “At worst, it threatens to disenfranchise thousands of Californians this election.” -NPR
The saga began in earnest last week when the Justice Department delivered a thumb drive to Los Angeles County that contained the list of roughly 20,000 people who investigators at the Department of Homeland Security say are “likely noncitizens” and registered to vote somewhere in California.
Initially, county officials declined to open the list, citing the security threat of inserting a thumb drive of unknown origin into a government computer. The next day, the DOJ emailed a spreadsheet with the same list.
Out of the 20,000 names on the list, only 7,035 had addresses in Los Angeles County and some were duplicates, according to a separate Tuesday court filing by Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan.
And after an initial review of the list, local officials suggests the list is “unreliable” and that some people on it had indicated in records they were born in the U.S. and therefore may be citizens.
The new details come from court filings submitted Tuesday by the state of California and local officials, in response to a lawsuit filed by the federal government attempting to compel the state to investigate the thousands of people before their votes are counted. The state says doing what the DOJ requests would be unfeasible this close to the election and would likely break federal and state election laws.
Perhaps, the DoJ has issues because of this little factoid?!
Democrat Xavier Becerra faces Republican Steve Hilton to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom. Becerra would be California’s first Latino governor since the late 1800s. No Republican has been elected governor in California since Arnold Schwarzenegger.