In a July 16 letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a "preliminary review" suggested there "may be as many as 190,832 non-citizens registered to vote" in her state.
uncertain
review → say → state
Weber was skeptical—for good reason, it turned out.
asserted
it → turn → reason
Three months later, the Trump administration reduced that estimate by nearly 90 percent, saying about 20,000 "likely noncitizens" had received California vote-by-mail ballots.
asserted
noncitizens → reduce → ballots
The Justice Department gave Weber and Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's top election official, 48 hours to determine whether any of the people on the government's list were in fact citizens.
asserted
any → give → fact
Otherwise, it said, Weber and Logan should segregate those ballots and refrain from processing them until citizenship could be verified.
uncertain
citizenship → say → them
After Weber and Logan declined to comply with the Justice Department's demands, it asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring them to do so—a request that he rejected in a scathing opinion on Wednesday.
asserted
he → decline → Wednesday
"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
asserted
government → seek → Branch
," writes U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee.
asserted
Carter → write → ?
"This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections.
asserted
states → violate → elections
If Plaintiff's last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process.
uncertain
party → grant → process
Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve."
asserted
generations → register → Americans
The Justice Department delivered its list of "likely noncitizens" to Logan three weeks before Election Day.
asserted
Department → deliver → Day
At that point, Los Angeles County already had sent ballots to 5.9 million voters and processed 331,000 of them.
asserted
County → send → them
Logan said he was "legally prohibited" from doing what the Justice Department wanted because it had failed to explain the methodology used to compile the list, raising the possibility that citizens would be denied their voting rights.
asserted
citizens → say → rights
On July 17, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin averred that "as many as" 15,903 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada.
asserted
noncitizens → aver → Nevada
The following month, when the DHS submitted a list of allegedly illegal voters to Nevada election officials, the number had fallen to 185—99 percent lower than Mullin's original figure.
uncertain
number → submit → figure
It turned out that every one of those 185 voters was a U.S. citizen.
asserted
one → turn → voters
"DHS has identified over 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote" in California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, Mullin said in July.
asserted
Mullin → identify → July
He was echoing President Donald Trump, who for years has grossly exaggerated the extent of illegal voting by noncitizens, often in service of his own vanity.
asserted
who → echo → vanity
Trump has repeatedly claimed, for example, that he would have won the popular vote in 2016 but for "the millions of people who voted illegally," and in January 2024 he warned that noncitizen voters "could very well affect the next election."
uncertain
voters → claim → election
In a speech the night before Mullin's announcement, Trump asserted that the DHS had "identified approximately 278,000 non-citizens who are registered to vote in federal elections.
asserted
who → assert → elections
Judging from Nevada's experience, the actual number may be closer to zero.
uncertain
number → judge → zero
It is hard to say, because the methods used by the DHS remain hazy.
asserted
methods → say → DHS
In the California case, Carter says, the DHS "purchased a voter file that appeared to reflect 'the actual voter rolls in California, that as of August 2025, may be used for the 2026 federal election.'"
uncertain
that → say → election
It "then 'enhance[d]' the voter data through a 'reliable third-party data analytics'" and used records maintained by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to find "an internal USCIS immigration number" that "may" correspond to each registered voter.
uncertain
that → enhance[d → voter
"The matches are scored," Carter notes, "because 'the resulting data may be incomplete, outdated, or mismatched.'
uncertain
data → score → ?
"
The DHS "then compared the potential identity matches to Department of State and Social Security Administration data to screen out U.S. citizens," Carter adds.
asserted
Carter → compare → citizens
"In the next step, a confidence level was assigned (where a high score supported a 'strong identity link')
asserted
score → assign → link
a manual review was conducted for each match to 'determine which registered voters'" were "likely to be aliens."
asserted
voters → conduct → match
Then came "a 'quality review' to identify issues such as 'duplicate entries' and 'incomplete records,'" followed by "an 'enrichment process' that utilized 'additional unique identifiers' to 'improv[e]' the matching process.
asserted
that → come → process
The government did not initially specify the source of the "reliable third-party data analytics."
asserted
government → specify → analytics
But it later revealed that "the third-party platform it relied on was
Lexis Nexis," Carter notes.
asserted
Carter → reveal → ?
"It remains unknown how Lexis Nexis performed its analysis, such as how it 'linked names to Social Security numbers not available on the California public voter file.'
asserted
Nexis → remain → file
Plaintiff likewise did not explain what its 'enrichment process' entailed or how it occurred.
asserted
it → explain → what
Plaintiff also provided 'no error rates' or 'validation against a reliable benchmark' that would enable a determination of the accuracy of its findings.
asserted
that → provide → findings
Omissions of this critical information prevent an evaluation of Plaintiff's procedure, including how Plaintiff reduced its initial claim of nearly 200,000 alleged noncitizens to 20,000 individuals.
uncertain
Plaintiff → prevent → individuals
"
Potential sources of error include conflating people with similar or identical names and outdated records that do not reflect recent naturalization.
asserted
that → include → naturalization
Because it is unclear how the DHS tried to address such problems, it is not surprising that Weber and Logan did not want to rely on the Trump administration's list, especially given its pattern of dramatically reducing the putative number of illegally registered voters.
uncertain
Weber → try → voters
"It is well-documented that matching voter registration records with data from other
administrative databases 'presents numerous challenges,'" Carter writes.
asserted
Carter → document → challenges
And given the potential for error, he says, "Plaintiff's allegations are not credible."
asserted
allegations → give → error
…and 19 more, not listed.
The Aporia
