Top U.S. DOJ official orders California to review list of possible noncitizens who received mail ballots

Washington — The Justice Department has ordered California to review a list of people whom the federal government believes may have received mail-in ballots for the upcoming November election despite not being U.S. citizens, according to a letter reviewed by CBS News.

"For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals' vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined," McCotter wrote.

CBS News has reached out to California's secretary of state for comment.

McCotter's demands represent the latest effort by the Trump administration to press blue states on whether they have people who are unlawfully registered to vote on their rolls.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, sent letters to all 50 states in July threatening to take criminal action if they knowingly allowed noncitizens to remain on their voter rolls.

It has resorted to using publicly available voter lists and other investigative means to try to identify noncitizens who may be registered in those states.

The crackdown comes as the president has continued to allege, without evidence, that the 2020 election was stolen due to voter fraud.

A data analysis published last month by Reuters found that states may have added more than 30,000 self-declared noncitizens to voter rolls since 2000 because of software glitches and clerical errors that came about during the processing of driver's licenses and state IDs.

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