The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it has filed a lawsuit against Orange County Registrar Robert Page for allegedly refusing to provide records related to the removal of noncitizens from voter registration rolls and failing to maintain accurate voter lists.
The suit claims this is a violation of the Help America Vote Act, a federal law signed in 2002 that reformed the nation’s voting process.
The suit also stated that “The attorney general recently received a complaint from the family member of a non-citizen in Orange County indicating that the non-citizen received an unsolicited mail-in ballot from the defendant, despite lack of citizenship.”
“Voting by non-citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal elections laws,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “Removal of non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls is critical to ensuring that the state’s voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting.
The lawsuit comes after President Donald Trump’s March 25 executive order, which
“sought to compel officials to require documentary proof of citizenship for everyone registering to vote for federal elections, accept only mailed ballots received by Election Day, and condition federal election grant funding on states adhering to the new ballot deadline,” according to The Associated Press.
Democratic state attorneys general challenged the effort as unconstitutional. A federal judge sided with the state attorneys general earlier this month.
When contacted by KTLA for a comment, the Orange County Registrar of Voters stated that they“do not comment on pending or ongoing litigation.”
