Attorney General Dan Rayfield is urging a federal court to reject the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to stop California election officials from counting more than 20,000 ballots. In a multistate brief, AG Rayfield and 21 other attorneys general argued that the lawsuit has no constitutional basis and that the job of running elections belongs to the states.
“This argument rests on a very simple concept: According to the US Constitution, states run elections, not the President,” said Attorney General Rayfield. “The US DOJ is trying to violate that protection by telling California election officials how to count their own ballots. That’s not how elections work in this country, and we’re standing up for the rules that protect voters in every state, including Oregon.”
In USA v. California, the U.S. Department of Justice (US DOJ) wants to stop California election officials from counting the ballots of more than 20,000 people that it claims, without proof, are “likely” noncitizens. It’s a familiar playbook. Earlier this year, US DOJ made the same kind of claim about 16,000 people in Nevada, and it still hasn’t confirmed that a single one of them was a noncitizen. The lawsuit is part of the administration’s broader effort to cast doubt on the midterm elections.
The Constitution gives states the power to run elections under laws passed by Congress, not under orders from the President or the executive branch. The multistate brief argues that US DOJ’s lawsuit has no constitutional basis and appears to be a deliberate act of bad faith. It also warns that a win for the federal administration would create chaos for election officials across the country and put eligible voters at real risk of losing their voice.
For years, President Trump has pushed false claims of widespread election fraud. Independent experts have rejected those claims and so have dozens of courts. In the past year alone, courts have struck down executive orders and agency rules that tried to take control of elections away from the states. Congress has also refused to pass the President’s proposals to put new burdens on voters. The US DOJ has demanded confidential state voter registration lists and has threatened state officials with prosecution; more than two dozen courts have found those actions illegal.
Now, with an election just weeks away, US DOJ is making demands that state and local election officials can’t meet and that the Constitution doesn’t allow. Its lawsuit claims the federal government can order state officials to set aside a person’s vote based on unverified allegations, and to face criminal charges if they refuse.
Congress has already set out detailed voter list maintenance requirements for states under its constitutional authority. According to the brief, US DOJ doesn’t claim California violated any of them. Instead, it’s trying to invent new powers over elections that it doesn’t have.
There are already laws to hold people accountable for voter fraud, from criminal prosecution to deportation for noncitizens. None of them require states to ignore their own election laws or stop counting legitimate votes.
Alongside Attorney General Rayfield in filing this brief are the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
