Dem
53
Ties
2
GOP
45
Continuing with the theme of using all options at his disposal, no matter how dishonest or corrupt they may be, in order to try to save the Republicans in the midterms, Donald Trump has escalated his harassment and intimidation campaign against California voters and election officials by charging 28 individuals with illegally registering to vote or voting in federal elections. Eleven of those people were arrested on Monday. All of them are lawful permanent residents of the U.S. and could possibly be citizens who are eligible to vote.
In other words, the feds arrested them without knowing if they're eligible to vote. In papers filed in the Department of Justice's lawsuit against California and elected officials, federal prosecutors wrote that these voters' ballots, if they even cast ballots, should be set aside "until the voter's citizenship status can be determined." The feds did not bother with that, and jumped right to arresting and charging the 28 people with a crime. That's a pretty big admission to make to the court if you're trying to convince a judge to disenfranchise 20,000 voters.
Nonetheless, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter was quick to announce the arrests and then claim that California's elections are all completely corrupt and must be verified by the feds. The staff mathematician is once again indisposed, but even this lawyer can handle this math. Hmmm, 23 million registered voters in CA and 28 alleged fraudulent voters. Even assuming those people actually voted when they weren't eligible to (and that's a big if), that would amount to .000122% of the total. And that number is pretty consistent with nationwide studies of how often voter fraud occurs. It is negligible and the federal government is essentially proving the point. And the judge is not going to be impressed because, if anything, this latest stunt shows that the lawsuit and arrests are just a charade to frighten and intimidate election officials and voters.
Meanwhile, The Guardian is reporting that the DoJ's list consists mostly of U.S. citizens, according to election officials, just like in other states where the feds tried this gambit. The numbers have already changed significantly from 190,000 in July to 20,000 to apparently 28. This is not going to give them a lot of credibility in front of the judge or the American people if this is their hook to try to cast doubt on the outcome of the midterms. They are just making themselves look even more incompetent, bumbling, dangerous, not to mention motivated by something other than "election integrity." Some of those arrested appear to be a case of mistaken identity, such as Omar Munoz. Munoz' son shares his father's name. Munoz Jr. is a U.S. citizen and a registered voter. The feds raided the Munoz' home in the pre-dawn hours on Monday and arrested Munoz Sr. despite the fact that he was recovering from a recent surgery.
As we have written, it was already unlikely that a federal judge was going to potentially disenfranchise 20,000 voters just before the election. Given this latest stunt, it's even more unlikely the judge will step in and take any action before Election Day. In fact, we would bet that the judge will wait to rule until after the election has been certified. After all, federal judges have very busy calendars—made even more busy by the shenanigans of the Trump administration. (L)