Justice Department seeks contempt charges
Federal officials argue that an immigrant rights group violated court orders by releasing statistical findings on a list of alleged noncitizen voters in California.
By Sarah Montgomery ·
California voters may face increased scrutiny on their registration status as the Justice Department pushes for legal penalties against a rights group. The conflict centers on a database containing over 20,000 names of individuals the administration claims are noncitizens registered to vote in the state.
On Sunday, the Justice Department filed a motion urging U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg to hold the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, in contempt. The department argued that the group’s recent public analysis of the data exceeded the scope of a Friday court order. Boasberg had previously granted CHIRLA access to the federal dataset but restricted its use to establishing legal standing for the lawsuit.
Attorneys for CHIRLA submitted documents on Saturday showing that more than 40 percent of the individuals on the government’s list do not appear in California’s official voter file. The analysis also identified 22 people who appear to be naturalized U.S. citizens, suggesting that thousands more eligible voters may be included on the list.
The Justice Department dismissed these findings as irrelevant to the specific question of standing. A filing from the department stated that the report’s comparisons between the government list and the full California voter file had no bearing on whether the particular plaintiffs in the case possessed legal standing. The filing further suggested that Judge Boasberg refer the matter for investigation into possible criminal contempt.
Alberto Lammers, a spokesman for the UCLA Voting Rights Project which conducted the data analysis, maintained that the plaintiffs’ counsel and their experts fully complied with the court’s orders. He issued this statement via email on Sunday.
In a separate legal battle, the Justice Department appealed a ruling from Friday night by U.S. District Court Judge Trina L. Thompson. Thompson, based in San Francisco, barred the department from demanding that election offices remove possible noncitizens from voter rolls or separate their ballots. The Justice Department noted that Thompson issued her decision before the federal government could file its initial arguments. Thompson scheduled a hearing on the appeal for Monday.
This dispute is part of a wider effort by the Trump administration to enforce its voter lists. A federal judge in California recently rejected a demand to force election officials to separate ballots cast by those on the list, warning that such orders could wreak havoc on the state’s election process. Two appellate judges agreed with that assessment. California election officials argue the list contains numerous errors and that they lack the time to complete the required legal steps for removal before the election. The administration maintains the list was compiled carefully from state registration data and federal citizenship records, and it has issued subpoenas while warning officials of potential criminal charges.
