{"version":"1.9","identifier":"3408a1f1-21ad-4098-ad4f-f4f932fbba37","language":"en-US","title":"DOJ seeks sanctions after rights group says 42% of its California voter list is not on state rolls","layout":{"columns":7,"width":1024,"margin":32,"gutter":20},"componentLayouts":{"text":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"maximumContentWidth":720,"margin":{"top":12,"bottom":12}},"photo":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"margin":{"top":20,"bottom":20}}},"componentTextStyles":{"default":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"textColor":"#171717"},"headline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue-Bold","fontSize":36,"lineHeight":42,"conditional":[{"conditions":{"maxViewportWidth":480},"fontSize":28,"lineHeight":34}]},"intro":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":20,"lineHeight":28,"textColor":"#555555"},"caption":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":19,"textColor":"#666666"},"byline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":20,"textColor":"#666666"},"body":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"paragraphSpacingAfter":14,"linkStyle":{"textColor":"#00704a"}}},"metadata":{"canonicalURL":"https://567politics.com/news/doj-chirla-contempt-request-boasberg-california-noncitizen-list-november-2026","datePublished":"2026-11-02T16:12:50.140587Z","dateModified":"2026-11-02T19:33:59.999573Z","authors":["567 Politics staff"],"excerpt":"UCLA experts challenged the federal list of 20,930 suspected noncitizen voters. The department says their analysis broke Judge Boasberg's order.","thumbnailURL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/3408a1f1-21ad-4098-ad4f-f4f932fbba37/98bb87284ba14b6db530aabfcad0465c.jpg","keywords":["elections"],"generatorName":"Frog News","generatorVersion":"1.0"},"components":[{"role":"title","text":"DOJ seeks sanctions after rights group says 42% of its California voter list is not on state rolls","textStyle":"headline","layout":"text"},{"role":"intro","text":"UCLA experts challenged the federal list of 20,930 suspected noncitizen voters. The department says their analysis broke Judge Boasberg's order.","textStyle":"intro","layout":"text"},{"role":"byline","text":"By 567 Politics staff · Published November 2, 2026","textStyle":"byline","layout":"text"},{"role":"photo","URL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/3408a1f1-21ad-4098-ad4f-f4f932fbba37/98bb87284ba14b6db530aabfcad0465c.jpg","caption":"The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, where Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing the CHIRLA case. · AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)","accessibilityCaption":"The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, where Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing the CHIRLA case.","layout":"photo"},{"role":"caption","text":"The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, where Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing the CHIRLA case. · AgnosticPreachersKid via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)","textStyle":"caption","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Washington to consider sanctions, and a possible criminal contempt referral, against an immigrant-rights group and its lawyers. The request came a day after the group's experts said that 42% of the names on the government's list of suspected noncitizen voters in California could not be found in the state's current voter file. The fight is now over two questions at once: whether the list is accurate, and whether the group broke a court order by testing it in public.\n\nThe case is *Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights v. Department of Homeland Security*, No. 1:26-cv-03072, before Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. On Friday, Oct. 30, Boasberg ordered the government to hand over its list of about 20,930 California registrants. He limited its use to the question of whether the plaintiffs have legal standing to sue, and barred them from disclosing any names, [the Associated Press reported](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/justice-department-urges-sanctions-for-database-analysis-critical-of-its-noncitizen-voting-claims). 567 Politics covered that order, and a same-day appeals ruling on California ballots, [in an earlier story](https://567politics.com/news/ninth-circuit-california-ballots-boasberg-noncitizen-letters-october-2026).\n\nThis story covers what each side filed over the weekend, what the numbers do and do not show, and what is still unknown on the eve of the Nov. 3 election.\n\n## What the plaintiffs filed on Saturday\n\nThe plaintiffs are the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, known as CHIRLA, and California voter Pedro Trujillo. They are represented by CHIRLA's lawyers and the UCLA Voting Rights Project. Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra is listed on the filing as the project's senior adviser and voting rights counsel. Becerra is also the Democratic candidate on Tuesday's ballot in the [California governor's race](https://567politics.com/races/california-governor-2026), a fact some critics of the filing have raised.\n\nOn Saturday, Oct. 31, the plaintiffs filed a [supplemental brief on standing](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-10-31-Plaintiffs-supplemental-briefing-regarding-plaintiffs-standing-and-the-defendants-20000-alleged-non-citizen-voter-list-1.pdf). It attached a [sworn declaration](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-10-31-Declaration-of-UCLA-data-scientists-Dr.-Matt-Barreto-and-Mr.-Michael-Rios-on-DOJ-DHS-voter-list.pdf) from UCLA political scientist Matt Barreto and data scientist Michael Rios. The declaration says the two received the government's file on a thumb drive at 6:03 p.m. EDT on Oct. 30. It also says they have held a contract with the California secretary of state's office since November 2020 to analyze voting trends using the state voter file.\n\nThe declaration makes four main claims.\n\n* **CHIRLA matches.** Barreto wrote that he is \"certain\" at least 22 entries on CHIRLA's list of naturalized-citizen members and clients fully match the government list. That match used first name, last name, date of birth and exact address. He called another 66 \"near certain\" matches and said hundreds more were \"highly likely.\" Under looser criteria that he said the government itself has used, 6,140 CHIRLA entries could be flagged as probable matches.\n* **Missing from the voter file.** The experts compared all 20,930 names with the 23.2 million records on California's current voter file. They said 4,350 matched fully on name, address and date of birth, or 20.7%. Another 7,700, or 36.8%, matched on name and birth date without address. That left 8,880 names, or 42%, that they said were \"not anywhere to be found\" on the current file.\n* **The file itself.** They said the version they received had eight data fields, lacked the California voter ID number and appeared to be newly created on Oct. 30, listing a Justice Department lawyer as author. They said earlier federal declarations described a file of about 30 fields.\n* **An extrapolation.** Applying CHIRLA's match rate to California's 3.8 million naturalized-citizen voters, they estimated 3,743 \"certain\" incorrect matches and as many as 348,238 \"probabilistic\" ones, depending on the criteria used.\n\nThe experts did not say the department violated Boasberg's disclosure order, [Democracy Docket noted](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/doj-withheld-key-data-from-court-ordered-voter-list-disclosure/). The judge has not found that it did.\n\n## What the Justice Department filed on Sunday\n\nThe department answered on Sunday, Nov. 1, in two filings. The first was a [response on standing](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-11-01-Defendants-response-to-plaintiffs-supplemental-brief-regarding-standing.pdf). It argues the plaintiffs still have not shown a concrete injury to any identified member. It objects that CHIRLA gave the judge its list of matched members in private, but not to the government, so the matches cannot be tested. \"Plaintiffs cannot have it both ways,\" the filing says.\n\nThat filing also says CHIRLA mixed \"members\" with \"clients,\" though only members count for the kind of standing the group claims. It says the federal letters to California officials \"are not self-executing\" and compel no one to act. It notes that California and Los Angeles County have publicly refused to set ballots aside, and that courts have so far denied the government's requests to force them. A footnote says Homeland Security Investigations \"reasonably believes\" the voter rolls it used came from the California secretary of state, so any criticism of their accuracy \"is better directed at the State of California.\"\n\nThe same filing describes the broader voter-file comparison as \"political grandstanding\" with \"no relevance\" to standing. It points to a separate motion to strike filed the same day. According to the AP, that motion argues the analysis violated Boasberg's order. It also suggests the judge refer the matter to the Justice Department for investigation of possible criminal contempt.\n\n[RedState reported](https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2026/11/01/whats-up-with-that-story-about-40-percent-of-noncitizens-on-doj-list-not-on-voter-rolls-n2208895) that the motion asks Boasberg to strike the parts of the expert report not tied to members' standing and to dismiss the complaint. It said the motion also asks him to require the plaintiffs to certify they had not \"promoted their contumacious conduct\" to the media. RedState reported that Boasberg ordered the plaintiffs to respond by 9 a.m. Eastern on Monday, Nov. 2. 567 Politics did not obtain the motion or the plaintiffs' Monday response, and could not confirm their contents directly.\n\nAlberto Lammers, a spokesman for the UCLA Voting Rights Project, told the AP: \"Plaintiffs' counsel and their experts fully complied with the Court's orders.\" No ruling on the motion had been reported as of late Monday morning.\n\n## The administration's case for its list\n\nThe administration says its list was built with care. In a [declaration filed in the related California case](https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-10-31-Declaration-of-UCLA-data-scientists-Dr.-Matt-Barreto-and-Mr.-Michael-Rios-on-DOJ-DHS-voter-list.pdf) and attached as an exhibit to the plaintiffs' filing, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official Nicolas Bartell said the agency had compared California's voter roll with immigration records. Homeland Security Investigations then refined the results into about 20,930 names. The list went to the secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar on Oct. 13.\n\nBartell's Oct. 26 declaration also addressed a sample of 200 names that Los Angeles County had checked. The county said 38.9% of its sample had claimed to be born in the United States. Bartell said USCIS records showed none of the people it matched to that sample was born in the United States. On re-review, he said, four \"might have a claim to U.S. citizenship,\" three of them possibly through a parent, and one person had died. A footnote says none of the four has \"conclusive proof of citizenship\" and that \"there is always a risk for human error.\"\n\nBill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, made the department's case in public. On Oct. 31 he called the analysis \"a bogus report\" and questioned how the group could know who is registered and who is a citizen.\n\n<https://x.com/USAttyEssayli/status/2116651764103663869>\n\nIn further posts quoted by [Just the News](https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/doj-pushes-back-ap-report-finding-lower-number-noncitizen-voters-rolls), Essayli wrote that \"everyone on the list is a confirmed noncitizen.\" He said federal prosecutors \"suspect\" they are all registered voters, based on a redacted voter list, and that California \"could, but refuses to, provide the unredacted list.\" He also said the Los Angeles County sample of 200 found all were \"foreign-born aliens.\"\n\nTwo points from the record bear on those claims. First, Bartell's sworn account of the county sample says four people might have a claim to citizenship. Being born abroad does not by itself establish noncitizen status. Second, the experts say they used the state voter file under a contract with the secretary of state. Whether that contract allows use in litigation is a question RedState has raised and says it has sought records on. 567 Politics has not seen the contract.\n\nRedState writer Jennifer Van Laar made a further argument. She wrote that the government's list was drawn from a voter roll current as of August 2025. If so, names missing from the current file could reflect routine roll maintenance, not federal error. In her view, the roughly 60% that did match is the more important figure. She also questioned whether CHIRLA had verified that its 22 \"certain\" matches are citizens.\n\n## The plaintiffs' case against the list\n\nThe plaintiffs and their allies argue the list is unreliable and that its use threatens eligible voters. They say naturalized citizens can be misidentified by database matching. They also say federal demands to set aside ballots, paired with warnings of prosecution, frighten lawful voters and the officials who count their ballots.\n\nIn an [Oct. 30 statement](https://vrp.ucla.edu/2848-2/), UCLA Voting Rights Project legal director Chad Dunn said: \"Citizens should not have to file a lawsuit to find out whether their own government has wrongly labeled them noncitizens on a secret list.\" CHIRLA general counsel Carl Bergquist said the group would seek \"broad relief against the Government's attempt to intimidate voters.\"\n\nThe supplemental brief argues that citizen members flagged by the government have standing in their own right. It cites an Eleventh Circuit voter-purge case, *Arcia v. Florida Secretary of State*. It says CHIRLA has had to divert staff and money to answer members' fears. It also notes two of the \"complete\" matches live in Santa Cruz County, whose registrar told the Los Angeles Times she was reviewing the federal list.\n\nOn the file itself, Barreto and Rios argue that removing the voter ID number \"goes against every basic principle of database matching.\" They say merging 12 address fields into one also made accurate matching harder.\n\n## Weighing the evidence\n\nBoth sides have made claims that go beyond what their evidence shows.\n\nThe 42% figure is the experts' finding, not a court's. A name that does not appear on today's voter file is not proof that the person was wrongly flagged. The person may have moved, died or been removed since the government's source data was pulled. The figure does raise a practical question: if thousands of listed people are no longer registered, a ballot hold based on the list would not reach them at all.\n\nThe extrapolation to 348,238 possible false matches rests on an assumption. It applies CHIRLA's match rate to every naturalized voter in the state. CHIRLA's members and clients may not resemble that wider group. Treating one organization's list as a sample of 3.8 million voters risks a hasty generalization, and the declaration presents the figure as dependent on the \"exact matching criteria\" used.\n\nOn the other side, the claim that \"everyone on the list is a confirmed noncitizen\" is stronger than the government's own sworn account of its sample. Calling the group \"activist\" or \"illegal immigrant rights\" describes who made the report. It does not answer its specific points about missing fields and match rates. Essayli's substantive question, about what records the experts used, is a fair one, and the declaration answers it in part by citing the state contract.\n\nThe narrow legal issue before Boasberg is different from the public debate. He must decide whether the broader analysis fell within the \"standing\" purpose he set. The plaintiffs argue the list's general accuracy bears on whether their members face real harm. The government says only identified members' injuries count. Courts have wide power to enforce limits on sensitive data. A criminal contempt referral would be a much more serious step than striking parts of a filing.\n\n## Where the related cases stand\n\nThe CHIRLA suit is one of several fights over the same list. In *United States v. California*, a district judge and a Ninth Circuit panel refused the government's request to make California set aside the ballots of listed voters. The department has also issued [grand jury subpoenas to Los Angeles County election workers](https://567politics.com/news/california-doj-grand-jury-subpoenas-election-officials-october-2026).\n\nIn San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson has barred federal agencies from threatening election workers over ballots of voters alleged to be ineligible. The department has appealed, and Thompson has said she will [revise that order](https://567politics.com/news/thompson-order-doj-appeal-ninth-circuit-election-workers-november-2026); a hearing was set for Monday. California Secretary of State [Shirley Weber](https://567politics.com/politicians/shirley-weber) received the original list on Oct. 13.\n\n## What to watch\n\n* Whether Boasberg rules on the motion to strike, sanctions or a contempt referral before or after Election Day.\n* Whether he finds CHIRLA has standing, and whether he grants any part of its request to bar new lists and demand letters.\n* Whether the government produces the full roughly 30-field file, including voter ID numbers, and whether CHIRLA must hand its matches to the government.\n* Whether any California county acts on the list after the polls close on Nov. 3.\n\nMore background is in the [United States elections guide](https://567politics.com/elections/united-states). How 567 Politics handles disputed claims is explained in our [methodology](https://567politics.com/methodology).\n\n*This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against 567 Politics editorial standards. It is based on court filings and reporting available as of late morning Monday, Nov. 2. The motion to strike and the plaintiffs' Monday response were not available to 567 Politics; their contents are attributed to the AP and RedState. Campaign finance data is not included because this story concerns litigation and federal agency conduct, not a candidate's policy positions or finances; Becerra appears as counsel, and his state campaign finances are reported to California, not the FEC.*","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"}]}