The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Orange County, California, registrar of voters, accusing the local election office of concealing voter information about noncitizen residents who were unlawfully registered to vote.
In a 10-page complaint filed in Santa Ana, DOJ attorneys alleged that Registrar Robert Page failed to turn over unredacted voter registration records as required under federal law. The lawsuit says the DOJ had requested information about voters removed from the rolls due to noncitizenship, but Page redacted key identifying data from the materials he provided.
“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 Dhillon 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 legal action follows President Donald Trump’s March 25 executive order, “Preserving and protecting the integrity of American elections,” which requires proof of citizenship to register and compels federal agencies to monitor states’ compliance with voter list maintenance. The directive has intensified efforts to identify illegal registrations across the country.
Liberal-leaning voting rights proponents have denounced the move as a form of voter suppression and argue that documented cases of noncitizen voting are exceedingly rare. Still, the Trump administration contends that state-level resistance is obstructing legitimate election security efforts.
According to the DOJ, the lawsuit was prompted in part by a recent case in which an undocumented immigrant in Orange County received an unsolicited mail-in ballot despite not being a U.S. citizen. The department subsequently asked for voter registration records dating back to Jan. 1, 2020, for people removed due to ineligibility.
Page supplied records but omitted driver’s license numbers, Social Security numbers, voter ID numbers, language preferences, and signature images, citing state privacy laws. The federal government argues those omissions violate the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act, which require election officials to maintain transparent and accurate voter rolls.
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The lawsuit marks the latest federal push to enforce voter integrity policies in blue states amid growing tension over federal oversight mandates under the Trump administration. Last month, the DOJ announced a lawsuit aimed at pushing North Carolina and its elections board to clean up inaccurate voter rolls.
A spokesperson at the Orange County Registrar of Voters’ office declined to comment to the Washington Examiner, saying the county would not comment on the pending litigation.