DOJ Seeks Sanctions Against Immigrant Rights Group Over Voter Data Findings

Forty percent. That is the share of 20,000 alleged non-citizen voters on a Justice Department list who do not appear on state voter rolls, according to a new analysis by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, known as CHIRLA. The group submitted these findings to U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg in a federal case currently before him.

The Department of Justice has asked Boasberg to sanction CHIRLA for publishing a report that questions the accuracy of the government's data. Prosecutors argue that the group exceeded the scope of its access to federal records. The DOJ contends that CHIRLA's findings regarding general voter roll discrepancies do not impact whether the specific plaintiffs in the lawsuit have legal standing to sue.

Judge Boasberg granted CHIRLA access to the data under strict conditions. The group was allowed to use the information solely to establish its legal standing in the case. It was prohibited from publicizing the names of individuals in the database. CHIRLA used the access to examine the 20,000 entries and produced a detailed report for the court.

The analysis identified at least 22 individuals on the list who appear to be naturalized citizens. The group also stated that thousands of entries on the list belonged to actual U.S. citizens. These findings suggest a high rate of error in the data the DOJ is using to support its claims of non-citizen voting.

In a court filing, the DOJ dismissed the report's relevance. "The report’s political grandstanding about alleged inaccuracies that purportedly impact California voters generally, or comparisons between the government’s list and the full ‘California voter file,’ has no relevance to whether the particular plaintiffs in this case have standing," the filing stated.

The filing asked Boasberg to refer the case to the DOJ so that CHIRLA could be investigated for contempt of court. This move seeks to penalize the organization for its use of the data rather than addressing the specific individuals named in the lawsuit.

Alberto Lammers, a spokesman for the UCLA Voting Rights Project, which filed the case, defended the group's actions. "Plaintiffs’ counsel and their experts fully complied with the Court’s orders," Lammers told the Associated Press in a statement.

The legal dispute comes one day before the midterm election. The DOJ has filed multiple lawsuits targeting ballots in various states. In California, a district court judge ruled against the DOJ's request to withhold 20,000 ballots. The judge stated that granting the request would disrupt the ongoing election and discount the votes of U.S. citizens.

In Washington state, the DOJ filed a similar lawsuit to withhold 400 ballots. A local election official found that several U.S. citizens were on the department's list in that jurisdiction as well. The DOJ's push for sanctions in California follows these parallel legal challenges to ballot counting.