Top U.S. DOJ official orders California to review list of possible noncitizens who receive

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The Justice Department has ordered California to review a list of people who the federal government believes may have received mail-in ballots for the upcoming November election despite not being U.S. citizens, according to a letter reviewed by CBS News.

In the Oct. 13 letter, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter imposed a 48-hour deadline to review the list of names, which were provided on a password-protected thumb drive, to determine the citizenship status of each individual.

"For individuals whom you cannot independently confirm citizenship status, we request that you immediately instruct the appropriate elections official to segregate — not cancel — those individuals' vote-by-mail ballots until their citizenship status can be determined," McCotter wrote.

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In a statement, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber confirmed that her office received a letter from the Justice Department, but said the federal government "did not provide the list [of alleged noncitizens] to our office."

"The USDOJ's relentless efforts to unlawfully gain access to states' protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in our elections," Weber said.

Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder/county clerk of Los Angeles County, confirmed he had received the letter but said the records were on a USB drive that his office had not yet accessed.

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We have not accessed the drive because doing so would conflict with established data privacy and information security protocols," Logan said in a statement. "We do not consider the device a secure medium. Additionally, the letter does not specify the number of individuals involved or describe the information contained in the records."

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