DOJ Subpoenas California Election Officials as Part of Ballooning Voter Fraud Probes

The Department of Justice has subpoenaed local election officials in at least four California counties, the latest development in its unprecedented effort to usurp the state’s authority and prove allegations of widespread voter fraud in the run-up to the midterm election.

The Chronicle obtained subpoenas sent to election officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties seeking possible instances of noncitizen voting and unredacted information about certain voters, including their registration, address, voting history and citizenship status. Santa Clara County confirmed it had also received subpoenas and inewsource reported that San Diego County officials received them as well. The subpoenas were sent as part of criminal investigations into alleged fraudulent voting by noncitizens.

One of the subpoenas was received as recently as Oct. 29. Others were sent in September.

The subpoenas reviewed by the Chronicle were sent before a federal judge in a separate case gave a stern warning to First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who has spearheaded the agency’s attempts to force California to surrender its authority to administer its own elections, to stop threatening local election officials.

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The subpoenas do not mean that the election officials who received them are themselves under investigation. But the DOJ has separately threatened many of the same officials by giving them 48 hours to review lists of alleged noncitizen voters, and threatening them with criminal prosecution if they do not comply.

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His office received three federal grand jury subpoenas last week from Essayli and agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the unit the Trump administration has tasked with leading criminal investigations into suspected voter fraud. The subpoenas ask individual election officials to turn over any information that “tends to indicate an alien has voted in a federal election” and that indicates “someone has aided and/or abetted an alien voting in a federal election.”

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The subpoenas also seek the registrar’s office’s methods for preventing voting by noncitizens.

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