Contra Costa County’s top elections official Kristin B. Connelly says a federal demand to hold back the mail ballots of 407 local voters is not something she can act on under state and federal law. Whether she must now rests with a federal judge in Los Angeles, who heard arguments in the broader dispute Tuesday, a week before Election Day.
The demand arrived Friday, Oct. 23, in a letter from U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian to Kristin B. Connelly, the county’s clerk-recorder and registrar of voters. It asked her to set aside, but not cancel, ballots returned by people on an attached list until their citizenship could be confirmed. It also asked her to work with the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security within 48 hours to determine who on the list is a citizen. The letter sought Social Security numbers, copies of identification and voter registration applications, and warned that officials who process ineligible ballots face legal consequences.
The Contra Costa County Elections Division at 555 Escobar St. in Martinez
The 407 names are Contra Costa’s share of a statewide list of about 20,000 people the Justice Department describes as likely noncitizens. That works out to roughly one of every 1,800 of the county’s more than 733,000 registered voters. Similar letters went to counties throughout California.
Federal officials describe the request as verification rather than removal. A department spokeswoman said it was not seeking a purge or the cancellation of any registrations. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has said officials who knowingly process a noncitizen’s ballot expose themselves to legal jeopardy, and that even a small number of illegal votes dilutes legitimate ones. On Oct. 19, federal authorities charged 28 people from the list with illegally registering to vote.
State and county officials dispute both the list and the method. California voters attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury when they register, and counties mail a ballot to every active voter. In an Oct. 24 letter to counties, the secretary of state’s office said withholding ballots based only on unsupported suspicion would violate state and federal election law. It also advised registrars to consult their county lawyers before releasing private voter data.
Los Angeles County, a defendant in the federal lawsuit, reviewed a 200-name sample of the statewide list. It reported that more than 40% of those registrations had already been canceled, more than 70% showed no voting history and nearly 4 in 10 people were recorded as born in the United States. A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official responded in a court filing that only four people in that sample were likely citizens. The agency said it built the list by matching public voter records against a commercial data service and State Department and Social Security records.
Connelly told MS NOW that the 48-hour deadline was unenforceable and that she had to follow state and federal law. “I expect this accusation to fall apart like we saw recently in Nevada,” she told The Associated Press. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, whose district includes part of the county, called the letter an attempt to interfere with the Nov. 3 election.
Timing complicates any order. State lawyers told the court that once a mail ballot is processed it is separated from the voter’s identity, so ballots already counted cannot be pulled back out.
On Monday, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel voted 2-1 to dismiss the Justice Department’s emergency appeal. It ruled that it lacked jurisdiction because the trial court had not yet acted. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter heard arguments Tuesday afternoon. No ruling had been reported by Tuesday evening, and counties face a deadline in early December to certify results.
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