On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a major setback in the Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to compel Los Angeles County to segregate certain ballots until the county could establish citizenship of individuals on a list of 20,000 people identified by the federal government as likely noncitizens.
The appellate court dismissed the DOJ’s appeal on procedural grounds, ruling that the DOJ hadn’t allowed the district court ample time to consider the request for a temporary restraining order.
While the Ninth Circuit declined to intervene, the case is far from over.
The same day that the appellate judges declined review, a senior U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) official filed a declaration in the district court offering new details that challenge key conclusions of Los Angeles County’s assessment of a 200-person sample.
You can read that brief here:
Skip to PDF contentLos Angeles County’s central argument was that the federal data provided were unreliable and included a significant number of voters whose records indicated they were born in the United States.
The county reported that 25.8% of the sampled voters had a place of birth in the United States listed in their records — something it characterized as a “strong indicator of citizenship status.”
USCIS Associate Director Nicolas Bartell challenged the significance of that finding in his declaration.
USCIS independently identified the 51 individuals in the sample whose California voter records indicated they were born in the U.S., matching California’s claim. However, Bartell reported that none of the individuals USCIS matched to the County’s sample were born in the U.S. according to USCIS records.
USCIS did not stop at simply verifying birthplace. The agency then re-reviewed each match individually to confirm that the listed voter was actually the same person represented in the USCIS records and, if so, whether USCIS records indicated that person was “likely a current alien.”
Bartell stated that USCIS found only four people who “might have a claim to U.S. citizenship.” Three of those individuals potentially derived citizenship through a parent but were not born in the United States.
However, according to the declaration, none of the four had conclusive proof of citizenship in USCIS records. Bartell cautioned that determining derivative citizenship can require a “detailed and complex legal analysis.”
LA County acknowledged that, among the 200 people in the sample, 86 had been mailed ballots, while 112 had not been sent ballots because their voter registrations were canceled or inactive.
The public filings do not reveal how many of those 86 ballot recipients were among the individuals USCIS determined were likely current aliens.
The LA County 20,000 noncitizen voters case is about to get spicy.
One must ask:
Do we trust FEDERAL US Customs and Immigrations records? (DOJ’s position)
Or
Do we trust people “attesting” that they are citizens? (California/LA County’s position) https://t.co/OzkEnrbYqF
— CannCon (@canncon) October 28, 2026
The two filings ultimately present sharply differing pictures of the 200-person sample. LA County relied on California voter-registration records, which require only a simple attestation under penalty of perjury that registrants are U.S. citizens when interacting with many government agencies engaged in automatic voter registration. No documentary proof of citizenship is required.
And while California can verify a registrant’s identity through information such as DMV records, the state also issues driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, so a DMV match does not itself establish citizenship.
The USCIS declaration utilized federal immigration records to examine place of birth and then individually re-reviewed its matches to determine whether each person was the same individual reflected in the USCIS records and was “likely a current alien.” This review identified only four persons who “might have a claim to U.S. citizenship.”
The district court is now left with two competing assessments: one relying heavily on information contained in California’s voter records, which verify citizenship only by attestation, and another relying on federal immigration records specifically maintained to document immigration and citizenship status.
Once a federal immigration record directly conflicts with information in the California voter file, does that warrant further verification before a ballot is counted?
Federal law already makes it unlawful, with limited exceptions, for an alien to vote in federal elections under 18 U.S. Code § 611. If election officials are presented with federal records indicating that a registered voter is likely a current alien, verifying that person’s citizenship prior to counting their ballot is not only reasonable; it’s the law.
The post LA County Used Voter Records to Challenge DHS List — Then USCIS Checked Immigration Records appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
