The Department of Justice has requested that California segregate the ballots of the 20,000 individuals on the provided list and not count them until they are investigated.
Posted by Up First from NPR, Checked
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Up First from NPROct 20, 2026
The DOJ's request is well documented: Reuters and USA Today report that letters to California's Secretary of State and Los Angeles County demanded segregating mail ballots from the list of over 20,000 alleged noncitizens and not tabulating them until citizenship was determined.
This claim is about the present, so it is judged as of the day it was checked.
What was said
… Los Angeles County that contained the names of 20,000 people all over California who are on the state's voter rolls and who the federal government says are likely non-citizens. Now, I should say there are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of that number, but the DOJ wants California to segregate the ballots of everyone on this list and for them not to be counted until those people have been investigated. The state says the federal government has not provided evidence for its claims, and doing what the DOJ asks would probably violate state and federal law. What are the chances the DOJ will be successful? Election law experts are pretty skeptical. …
Up First from NPR · · from the transcriptPost →What we found
Supports. Reuters (Oct 15) reports that letters to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and LA County Registrar Dean Logan demanded that returned mail-in ballots from the list be segregated and not tabulated 'until citizenship has been determined.'[1]
Supports. USA Today (Oct 15) reports the DOJ asked California to 'segregate — not cancel —' ballots of listed individuals whose citizenship cannot be verified and not to count their ballots until citizenship is confirmed, based on a list of more than 20,000 people.[5]
Supports. AP, NBC and NPR (Oct 28-29) describe the same DOJ demand to segregate ballots of about 20,000 people alleged to be likely noncitizens, confirming the request's scope and substance.[2][3][4]
Context. A federal judge denied the request on Oct 28 and the Ninth Circuit later rejected the DOJ's appeal, so the request was not granted; the claim concerns the request itself, not its outcome.[3][6][7]
Sources
7 sources: 2 fact-checkers, 2 tier 2, 3 not rated
- 1DOJ sues California to block votes from alleged non-citizensreuters.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 2Judge denies federal request to segregate California ballotsapnews.com · fact-checker · cited for: supports
- 3Judge declines to block California from counting alleged noncitizen voters’ ballots in DOJ lawsuitnbcnews.com · tier 2 · cited for: supports, context
- 4Judge denies DOJ bid to stop processing California ballotsnpr.org · tier 2 · cited for: supports
- 5DOJ sues California in clash over noncitizen voter allegationsusatoday.com · not rated · cited for: supports
- 6Judge rejects DOJ’s request to force California to segregate ...ocregister.com · not rated · cited for: context
- 7Appeals court rejects DOJ's demand for California to set ...kshb.com · not rated · cited for: context
Where this claim was made
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