Federal ultimatum to California to verify citizenship of thousands of Voters on electoral roll

The U.S. Department of Justice ordered the state of California to urgently review a list of individuals who may have received mail-in ballots for the upcoming November election without meeting the requirement of U.S. citizenship, according to an official letter obtained by CBS News.

In the letter sent on Oct. 13, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter set a 48-hour deadline for state officials to verify the citizenship status of the individuals included in an encrypted USB drive provided by the federal government.

Strict orders to safeguard the integrity of the process

The letter establishes clear guidelines regarding the handling of ballots cast by voters whose citizenship cannot be independently confirmed. McCotter instructed authorities not to cancel the ballots, but rather to set them aside as a precautionary measure.

"For individuals whose citizenship cannot be independently confirmed, we ask that you immediately instruct the appropriate election official to set aside —not to void— those individuals' mail-in ballots until their citizenship status can be determined," McCotter stated in the document.

The federal official also added that, in the event that the individuals in question have not yet received their ballot, authorities must take "all immediate and reasonable measures to not provide them with a ballot until we confirm their status."

County responses and background on the federal initiative

The federal directive was sent to various counties across the state. Dean Logan, registrar and election official for Los Angeles County, confirmed receipt of the notification, though he noted that his office has not yet accessed the information on the device due to internal cybersecurity protocols.

This measure comes on top of warnings issued in July by Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, who notified the California Secretary of State about the presence of non-citizens in the voter rolls.

Similarly, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice has sent letters to all 50 states warning of criminal liability for knowingly allowing non-citizens to remain on the voter rolls.

A data analysis published by Reuters recently revealed that computer glitches and administrative errors in the processing of driver's licenses have resulted in more than 30,000 people who identified as non-citizens ending up registered on the voter rolls in various states since 2000.

In light of this situation, the federal government maintains a firm enforcement strategy to ensure that only U.S. citizens eligible to vote participate in decisions at the polls.