Dem
54
GOP
46
Yesterday, Donald Trump's personal attorney AG Todd Blanche once again escalated his attacks on states'
administration of elections. With less than three weeks before voting ends in the midterm elections, the Department of
Justice
sued
the state of California, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan to
block the counting of votes of 20,000 people it claims are "likely noncitizens." Just 2 days before, the DoJ sent Weber
and Logan
warning
letters telling them to use enclosed thumb drives to verify the eligibility of the people listed. The thumb drives
apparently had a sticky note attached to them with a handwritten password. Yeah, nothing strange or suspicious about
that at all.
Not surprisingly, neither Logan nor Weber used the thumb drive. They did wonder how the federal government would have any information about voters' eligibility when the state has not shared any voter data with the feds. Logan said he "did not consider the thumb drive a secure device and has not accessed any files." Over the summer, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent a similar letter and claimed that California had over 190,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls but refused to provide any information on how it arrived at that figure.
This most recent letter doesn't identify the number claimed to be noncitizens. The lawsuit, however, claims that the number is 20,000. Apparently, the number changes as frequently as the number of windows in a Trump skyscraper. In any event, similar claims have been made in other states and they've all been unfounded. In Nevada, the feds claimed that 1,500 noncitizens were registered to vote. But when those individuals were identified, they were all found to be citizens and properly registered. The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction to prevent the state from counting the votes of those the government says are "likely noncitizens" until their citizenship status can be verified.
For months, the DoJ and DHS have tried variations of these shenanigans in federal courts across the country and have lost in virtually all of them. It's unclear why they think this particular trick would work for them on the eve of the election. A federal court is not going to grant them the relief they seek because: (1) their data is faulty and unreliable; (2) states run elections and determine voter eligibility and (3) there is no basis to disenfranchise 20,000 voters this close to the election. Blanche must know this, as does the guy unlawfully serving as the U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli.
So, what is really going on here? And why target Los Angeles, which is a reliably blue county in a blue state? We can think of a couple of reasons. First, it's all about the announcement. If they can start to sow doubt about the reliability and integrity of elections here, they can bootstrap that to challenges to the vote count after the election. Second, Prop 50 redrew California's Congressional map and could net Democrats as many as five seats. And if Texas' new map turns out to be a dummymander, then Democrats will come up way ahead in the redistricting wars. So, it is useful to cast doubt on any and all results out of California. Undoubtedly, these unfounded claims will be repeated again when it takes the Golden State extra time (as per usual) to get the ballots counted.
But still, this just reeks of desperation. And by now, this song and dance is so old—is anyone really going to buy it (beyond the folks who bought it long ago, without need for evidence)? The administration just keeps replaying the same tired false accusations. Maybe at the end of the day this is all still just another attempt to appease Trump as he feels the midterms slipping away. If it weren't so corrupt and dangerous, it would be just sad. Meanwhile, the limited resources of the DoJ and our taxpayer dollars are being wasted yet again on a fool's errand. What was that about government efficiency again? (L)