LA County Admits Under Oath It Can't Verify Whether Voters Are Citizens

Los Angeles County, which runs the largest election in the nation with about 5.9 million registered voters, has admitted in federal court that it has no independent way to check whether the people voting there are U.S. citizens. The admission comes in a sworn declaration from Monica Flores, an assistant registrar in the office of Dean Logan, the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk who runs its elections.

The Justice Department had asked a judge to order California and Los Angeles County to set aside, not cancel, the mail ballots of more than 20,000 registered voters that federal immigration agencies flagged as likely noncitizens, and to verify their citizenship before those ballots are counted (DOJ memo). The county's answer, filed Tuesday, is that it can't do the verifying part.

"The Registrar is not equipped or authorized to verify voter citizenship because it does not independently house citizenship-related information beyond the voter attestation as identified in federal and state law (such as, among other things, immigration records, travel records, naturalization records, etc.) and certainly is not equipped to do so within the election period," Flores wrote.

In plain English: when someone registers to vote in Los Angeles County, they check a box saying they are a citizen. That checkmark is the whole check.

The federal check California won't use

The very next sentence of the declaration may matter even more. "California has not authorized use of the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (“SAVE”) program for the 2026 General Election, and the Registrar has no direct access to federal citizenship data," Flores wrote.

SAVE is the Department of Homeland Security's citizenship-checking service. After upgrades in 2025, election offices can run voters through it in bulk using a Social Security number, and it checks Social Security, DHS and State Department records. It "can usually verify U.S.-born citizens, naturalized U.S. citizens," and in some cases people who acquired citizenship through their parents, according to USCIS. The agency also dropped its fees for state and local users.

Plenty of states already use it. In a recent analysis, the MIT Election Data and Science Lab counted 101 election offices in 29 states registered with SAVE for voter registration or list maintenance (MIT). A lower-court ruling against the expanded system was paused by the Supreme Court in September, so every state may use it, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California has chosen not to.

"Massive concession"

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, posted the page Tuesday afternoon.

"Massive concession: Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. (They simply take their word for it.)" Essayli wrote. "Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections. Yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California."

Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin confirmed the filing, reporting that county officials "rely solely on a voter’s attestation when they check yes or no to being a U.S. citizen under penalty of perjury" (X).

Newsom's office: "California adheres to Federal Law"

Gov. Gavin Newsom's press office answered Essayli with a jab. "California adheres to Federal Law passed by Congress in the 1990s [see 52 U.S.C. 20504(c)(2) (Section 5 of the NVRA)]," the office wrote, citing the National Voter Registration Act's motor-voter section. "May want to brush up on your election law before tweeting." It sent Melugin the same line: "California adheres to Federal Law" (X).

Melugin's reply cut to the point. "You are citing the portion of federal law that requires a voter to attest if they are a citizen/eligible when registering to vote. That is not in contention," he wrote. "The contention is California, unlike dozens of other states, chooses not to participate in USCIS’ SAVE program to CHECK the citizenship. It’s the honor system in California" (X).

Newsom's office later argued that SAVE "captures only people who aren’t native-born" and that federal law bars systematic voter-list maintenance within 90 days of an election (X). But USCIS says SAVE checks U.S.-born citizens through Social Security records too. And the Justice Department did not ask California to purge anyone. Its Oct. 13 letter asked officials to "segregate—not cancel" the flagged ballots until citizenship could be confirmed (DOJ memo).

How we got here

The Justice Department sued California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Logan on Oct. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The case is United States v. State of California, No. 2:26-cv-12025 (DOJ).

Federal officials say Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services narrowed a preliminary list of more than 175,000 possible noncitizen voters down to just over 20,000 people who are registered in California, were sent a mail ballot, and are "highly likely to be noncitizen aliens." Under California law, every registered voter is mailed a ballot. The government asked for an emergency order on Oct. 19, before the ballots are counted (DOJ memo).

The same day, the Justice Department charged 28 green card holders across California with election and immigration crimes in what it calls Operation Protect the Vote. Prosecutors say the defendants falsely claimed to be citizens to register, and that many of them went on to vote (DOJ). "Each of the 28 defendants charged today appears on the list of more than 20,000 likely noncitizen registrants we provided to California election officials last week," said Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. All 28 are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The county argues the list is unreliable. It says only 7,035 of the records carry Los Angeles County addresses, that the list includes duplicates and cancelled registrations, and that the government never explained how it was built (county opposition). Logan has said his office "cannot withhold or refuse to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations" (LA County).

But the county's own declaration shows the problem runs the other way too. If a voter's checkmark is false, Los Angeles County has no records to catch it, no access to federal data, and no state permission to use the federal tool that could. No ruling on the government's request had been reported as of Tuesday night. Election Day is Nov. 3.