The Blue state roll case tests the DOJ’s ability to inspect state election records
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The Justice Department is escalating its conflict with California over access to voter rolls, accusing state officials of blocking state inspections — even as Golden State officials warn the demand threatens voter privacy and exceeds federal authority.
The dispute centers on the preservation of voter rolls and access to registration records, not any publicly identified allegations of ineligibility in a particular California race.
“If California really wants voters to trust its elections, it should open its records, not fight to keep them closed,” said Assistant US Attorney for the District of California Bill Essayli in a lengthy post to X that included a copy of the letter Assistant US Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the DOJ’s office that enforces federal voting rights laws, said last year. to test.
“Who are they afraid of?” Essayli asked.
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California laws allow some first-time voters who don’t provide a Social Security number or driver’s license when they register to verify their identity with documents that include gym membership cards, employer IDs, credit or debit cards, prescription labels and insurance cards — a policy Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli says warrants scrutiny. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images; Emily Elconin/REUTERS)
Dhillon’s letter followed an Aug. 8 response from Weber’s office raising concerns about potential privacy protections for county voter registration data sought by the federal government. A spokesman from the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom told Fox News Digital that “all federal courts that have considered this matter have determined that the US DOJ’s demands violate federal law,” adding that “unlike this federal administration, we are not doing illegal things.”
Weber’s office offered to allow the DOJ to inspect the modified voter registration database by appointment in Sacramento, arguing that it satisfied their legal obligations, but Dhillon rejected that offer and sought an electronic copy of the statewide voter list “by all precincts,” according to official documents in the ongoing dispute in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We also have serious concerns about how California keeps its votes,” Essayli wrote in his X post calling out California Democrats for blocking an audit of their voter association. “There are open questions about whether the state is removing dead voters, people who have moved, and those who have been convicted of revocation.”
Essayli also highlighted how California laws allow some first-time voters who don’t provide a Social Security number or driver’s license when registering to verify their identity with documents including gym membership cards, employer IDs, credit or debit cards, prescription labels and insurance cards — a policy his office says warrants scrutiny.
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“Additionally, California allows third parties to recruit and poll voters (a practice known as vote-picking) with few restrictions,” Essayli said. “This makes it difficult to track who exactly received, completed, and submitted each vote.”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the DOJ’s office that enforces federal voting rights laws (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The California Attorney General’s office dismissed Essayli’s motion, noting that the DOJ had already lost the case at the district court level and that the pending Ninth Circuit battle stems from the federal government’s request for that dismissal.
A US District Judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit in January, with the presiding judge writing that the department was seeking “unprecedented personal information” from California’s unredacted voter list, including names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, voting history and other sensitive information from nearly 23 million Californians. The judge also wrote that the DOJ cannot enforce federal election laws in a way that “completely disregards the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution.”
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Attorney General’s Office spokesman Rob Bonta emphasized in a statement to Fox News Digital that the DOJ has brought about 30 voter registration cases across the country and has lost all eight voter registration cases that have been decided so far.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta (R) speaks as California Governor Gavin Newsom looks on during a news conference at Gemperle Orchard on April 16, 2025 in Ceres, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The battle over government access to California’s voter rolls comes as voter registration has become a concern for President Donald Trump and Republicans nationally.
“If the fraudsters do it right, there could be many, many votes like this,” Illinois GOP Chairman Bob Grogan told Fox News Digital two weeks ago after a Democratic mayor in his home state turned himself in for allegedly using his dead mother’s name to vote. Grogan expressed some concern about voting by mail, although he saw the need for it in some cases.
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“Mail ballots are particularly vulnerable, which is why they should be protected, they should never be sent without a specific request from the voter, and they should always be verified before they are included. This case also shows how important it is to keep voters clean,” said Jason Snead, who runs the Honest Elections Project, told Fox News Digital about the Illinois case. “If the registration system had been slower, it is possible that this illegal vote would have been counted before the fraud was discovered. Unfortunately, too many states – especially blue states – strongly oppose commonsense protections, which begs the question: how many more illegal votes have passed through the system?”
Election officials of Chester County, Pa. are reviewing incoming and absentee ballots at West Chester University in West Chester on Nov. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The late registrants also prompted a broader review of national voter registration.
Election officials in North Carolina said in April they identified about 34,000 dead people still listed on the state voter list after a comparison of state databases, and other local disputes include allegations or investigations involving dead voters from registration lists or missing voting records.
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Republicans argue that cases like these show why states should be more specific about how they maintain voter rolls. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told Fox News Digital that the New Jersey records were an “eye-opener” and said the party sought voter registration data from almost every state.
The DOJ has already pursued a similar records battle within California, suing an Orange County registrar last year for allegedly refusing to provide records to help remove noncitizens from its voter registration list. At the time, Dhillon said removing non-citizens from California’s voter rolls was “critical” to ensuring the state’s rolls were accurate and that elections were being conducted without voter fraud.
