by Ben Whedon
The Department of Justice on Monday announced a string of arrests related to alleged voter fraud in California.
“This causes real damage to real elections and real damage to American citizens,” a DOJ official said in a press conference. The DOJ also announced that it was bringing charges against 28 noncitizens illegally registered to vote, including some who did cast votes.
“These are not isolated instances,” another official said, before confirming that the DOJ was reviewing thousands of alleged illegal voting cases across the country.
The Golden State has been a focal point for the administration’s efforts to curb voter fraud, with the DOJ separately pursuing a lawsuit against the state over 20,000 alleged non-citizens registered to vote in the state.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said every illegal vote “cancels out the vote of a lawful American citizen.”
“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. California refused to look at that list. Today’s charges show exactly what that refusal puts at risk. California must verify the citizenship of those more than 20,000 registrants before mail-in ballots are counted,” he said.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said, “California is mailing ballots to noncitizens, and they are refusing to comply with federal law, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. The voting rights of American citizens must be protected.”
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
