L.A. County sample finds 70 percent of DOJ voter list never voted Play

Los Angeles County election officials have run a cross-check on some of the 20,000 names — supposed illegal names on voter rolls — on an infamous thumb drive that Justice Department officials gave them last week. These are names of people across California who are suspected of registering to vote illegally or of having voted twice. Of those 20,000 names, 7,000 live in L.A. County. Los Angeles County officials took a sample of 200 of those names, and of those, 70 percent have no record of ever voting, and 61 percent had their registrations canceled or were no longer active.

Attorney General Rob Bonta Monday filed court documents charging the Trump administration with breaking federal law that prohibits election officials from making changes to voter registration lists within 90 days of an election. The federal government may also be violating a federal judge's court order that prohibits the U.S. Department of Justice from efforts to disqualify voters right now. The California election has already started — ballots were mailed out and polls are in effect open.

The court filing from Bonta points out that similar Trump administration claims of rampant voter fraud have been filed in other blue states only to wither under court analysis. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Department of Homeland Security claimed it identified 14,000 or more potential non-citizen voters. That figure was later reduced by the feds to 185 and then to zero. Everyone on the list proved to be a citizen.

In his filing Monday, Bonta said the Trump administration has lost every one of the 26 different lawsuits it has filed to try to get unredacted voter rolls from states to support President Trump's unfounded voter fraud claims.

An acting U.S. deputy attorney Monday agreed in court that there may be some names on the thumb drive list in California who turn out ultimately to be citizens. Trent McCotter said, quote, "We're not perfect. That's why we've asked California to cooperate with us." McCotter said their list of possible non-citizens was based on public voter rolls the feds obtained from California, then cross-referenced with some sort of government database and other public information. No more details on that.

The federal government this week charged 23 people with voting illegally in California, allegedly casting 34 illegal ballots dating back to 2020. In those years there have been eight statewide elections and 94 million ballots cast. The 34 allegedly fraudulent ballots, if true, would account for 0.00004 percent. That's based on reporting by CalMatters.