US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SEEKS TO SET ASIDE CALIFORNIA MAIL BALLOTS

The US Justice Department has asked California election officials to set aside more than 20,000 mail ballots while it checks the voters’ citizenship. Federal prosecutors sent letters on Friday to 57 of California’s 58 counties, giving registrars 48 hours to identify voters on a list compiled by the Department of Homeland Security. The list came from a comparison of California voter rolls with federal immigration records. The letters said officials who knowingly counted ballots cast by non-citizens could face criminal liability. The department has also asked a court to block the counting of roughly 20,000 ballots in a case against California and Los Angeles County.

A three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals held an emergency hearing on Sunday after the department sought its intervention. Judges questioned whether they had jurisdiction to act while the district judge assigned to the case had a hearing scheduled for this week. California officials said Los Angeles County had already opened about 600,000 mail ballots as part of its election process. A California deputy solicitor general called the department’s claim that it had only recently learnt ballots were being opened “absurd on its face”.

The department has also sued Alaska’s Division of Elections over its US Senate race. It asked a federal judge to prevent certification if Democrat Mary Peltola defeats Senator Dan Sullivan until officials investigate whether a second candidate named Dan J. Sullivan confused voters. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he had instructed the department to file the Alaska case. The administration says its actions protect federal election integrity; the courts have yet to decide the requests in California and Alaska.