The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation into California’s election systems as President Donald Trump claims that polls forecasting a Democratic “blue wave” have been “rigged.”
According to an investigation by The New York Times, local officials have been subpoenaed for voter-registration records involving people whom the Justice Department appears to suspect are not U.S. citizens.
The subpoenas require staff at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office to provide internal communications and documents detailing their “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens.”
Election officials were reportedly warned that refusing to comply could expose them to “significant federal scrutiny.”
At least two employees at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office told The Times that they received grand jury subpoenas last week.
Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan described the subpoenas as an act of “intimidation.”
“At every step, the US Department of Justice has taken a confrontational, adversarial approach. Election officials are acting in accordance with state and federal law,” he said.
The Trump administration has repeatedly alleged that polls showing Democrats ahead of Republicans are manipulated or “rigged.”
The Trump administration has subpoenaed local election officials in California
Two employees at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office have reportedly been subpoenaed by the Justice Department
Early voting has already begun in California for the US midterm elections
Pollsters are forecasting a Democratic surge ahead of this year’s midterm elections, with Democrats hoping to take control of both the Senate and the House.
Republican senators in deeply conservative Mississippi and Kansas are facing unexpectedly competitive challenges from Democrats. In the House, GOP incumbents in Colorado and Minnesota are also contending with well-funded opponents.
More than a dozen Senate races are currently within the margin of error. Recent CNN polls show Democrats Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico leading by seven and six percentage points, respectively.
Trump rejected the unfavorable outlook in a recent Newsmax interview, dismissing polls that put Democrats ahead as “rigged.”
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He argued that favorable polling for Democrats was intended to discourage his supporters from turning out to vote.
“Well, if they said you’re going to lose by three or four points, people will vote,” he said. “If they say you’re going to lose by 17, nobody goes out to vote.”
Trump also urged his supporters to disregard the polls and “pretend” that he is on the ballot.
Nate Silver, the election analyst, recently told The New York Times that a sweeping Democratic victory in the midterms could “mark the end of the Trump era.”
“The most regular trend in American elections, one of the few things that survives for decades, is there is a backlash against the president’s party at the midterm,” he said.
Election officials in Los Angeles County have received the subpoenas as early voting is underway. California Governor Gavin Newsom has not acknowledged the new report
As Republicans continue to dismiss unfavorable polling, the Trump administration has doubled down on election integrity.
The fight between Los Angeles County election officials and the Department of Justice (DOJ) began earlier this month when local workers received a thumb drive containing ‘sensitive and personal identifiable information’ on over 20,000 individuals, according to court documents.
The DOJ argued the individuals were ‘likely noncitizens who were sent a vote-by-mail ballot’ and asked election officials to confirm the information within 48 hours.
The county responded that they could not verify the individuals’ citizenship within the deadline, and the DOJ subsequently filed the lawsuit.
US District Judge David Carter denied the request on Wednesday, writing that the decision was ‘about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election.’
‘Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,’ he wrote.
Carter added that the legal action was ‘indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials.’
The Justice Department has also announced charges involving ’48 aliens’ in five states, including California, in connection with fraudulent voting earlier this week.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House, the DOJ, Newsom’s office and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office for comment.
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