Gov. Gavin Newsom accused President Donald Trump over the weekend of attempting to rig the election, after the Justice Department filed an emergency request asking a Los Angeles federal judge to immediately block California officials from counting ballots tied to tens of thousands of people the administration accuses of being noncitizens who illegally registered to vote.
The 11th-hour request for a temporary restraining order escalates the battle between California and the administration over the midterm elections. "California not just refused to act; it made clear that it is committed to treating ballots from those likely non-citizens equal to ballots from American citizens," government prosecutors said in the filing, according to MyNewsLA. The department wants the state and Los Angeles County to segregate mail ballots associated with people on its list of more than 20,000 "likely noncitizens" while their citizenship is checked.
The same day, federal law enforcement arrested 11 foreign nationals across the state on charges of fraudulently registering to vote, with 28 people charged in total under the department's Operation Protect the Vote. California officials have called noncitizen voting extremely rare and characterized the federal actions as politically motivated, setting up a courtroom and public-relations fight that will play out in the final two weeks before November 3.