The is escalating its clash with California over voter-roll access, accusing state officials of blocking a federal audit â though Golden State officials warn the demand threatens voter privacy and oversteps federal authority.
The dispute centers on voter roll maintenance and access to registration records, not any publicly identified allegation of impropriety in a specific California race.
“If California genuinely wants voters to trust its elections, it should open its records, not fight to keep them closed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in a lengthy post on X that included a copy of a letter U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ office enforcing federal voting-rights laws, sent to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber last year demanding the state’s voter rolls for inspection.Â
“What are they afraid of?,” Essayli questioned.
Dhillons letter followed an Aug. 8 response from Webers office raising concerns about privacy protections that could be implicated by the state voter-registration data sought by the federal government. A spokesperson from California Governor office told Fox News Digital that “every federal court to consider the issue has ruled U.S. DOJs demands violate federal law,” adding that “unlike this federal administration, we dont do things that are illegal.”
Webers office offered to let DOJ inspect a redacted voter-registration database by appointment in Sacramento, arguing that satisfied their legal obligations, but Dhillon rejected that proposal and demanded an electronic copy of the statewide voter list “with all fields,” according to legal filings from the ongoing dispute taking place in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We also have serious concerns about how California maintains its voter rolls,” Essayli wrote in his X post, calling out California Democrats for blocking the federal audit of their voter rolls. “There are open questions about whether the state is promptly removing deceased voters, people who have moved, and individuals convicted of disqualifying felonies.”Â
Essayli also highlighted how Californias rules allow certain first-time voters who do not provide a Social Security number or drivers license when registering to verify their identity with documents including gym membership cards, employer IDs, credit or debit cards, prescription labels and insurance cards â a policy his office says warrants scrutiny.
“On top of that, California allows third parties to collect and turn in ballots on voters behalf (a practice known as ballot harvesting) with few restrictions,” Essayli added. “This makes it difficult to track who actually received, completed, and submitted each ballot.”
The California Attorney Generals office pushed back on Essaylis framing, noting that DOJ had already lost the case at the district court level and that the pending Ninth Circuit fight stems from the federal governments appeal of that dismissal.
A U.S. District Judge dismissed the DOJs lawsuit in January, with the presiding judge writing that the department was seeking “an unprecedented amount of personal information” from Californias unredacted voter rolls, including names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, history and other sensitive information from nearly 23 million Californians. The judge also wrote that DOJ could not use federal election laws in a way that “wholly disregards the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution.”
A spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bontas office highlighted in a statement to Fox News Digital that the DOJ has brought and has lost all eight voter roll cases that have been decided to date.
The fight for federal access to California’s voter rolls comes as voter roll maintenance has been a concern of President Donald Trump and Republicans nationally.
“If fraudsters do it right, it can be many, many more
