The head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent letters to election officials in all 50 states on Tuesday threatening criminal action if they knowingly allow non-U.S. citizens to vote or to remain on their voter rolls, the department confirmed to CBS News.
The letters also asked the state officials to explain how they intend to comply with federal law and ensure non-citizens do not cast ballots. Each state was given five days to respond.
“Any election officer, including the chief election officer of the state, who knowingly retains noncitizens on the state’s [state voter registration list] or facilitates noncitizens in receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote in identical letters sent to officials in Arizona, Michigan and Maine that were reviewed by CBS News. She added that it is also a crime for two or more people to conspire to deprive people of their constitutional rights.
“We encourage you to contact us to discuss what steps your state should take to maintain clean voter lists as required by law,” she wrote.
President Trump has claimed for months that people who are not U.S. citizens frequently vote in federal elections, even though instances of noncitizen voting are extremely rare.
The president has pushed the Senate to pass a bill called the SAVE America Act that would require Americans to show proof of citizenship in-person to register to vote, threatening not to sign other bills unless Congress took action on the matter.
Mr. Trump also signed an executive order earlier this year that would create federal lists of eligible voters and bar the U.S. Postal Service from mailing ballots to anybody who isn’t listed, though that measure was blocked by a federal judge.
The letters to states come as the Justice Department continues to litigate against dozens of states in an effort to get them to turn over unredacted voter rolls.
The Civil Rights Division has said it wants to screen them for compliance with federal laws that require states to maintain clean voter rolls, though more recently it also has acknowledged it intends to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security so the rolls can be screened for non-citizen voters. CBS News has previously reported that DHS intends to use the data collected from the voter rolls for criminal and immigration enforcement.
To date, the Justice Department has failed to obtain any legal victories in its fight for voter rolls, with 11 losses in district court so far. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit became the first federal appellate court to affirm one of those rulings, siding with Michigan.
In a statement, a Justice Department spokesperson said: “The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections.”
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, who received one of the letters Tuesday, defended his state’s efforts, writing in a statement that “the suggestion that Arizona election officials are failing to do their jobs is simply not supported by the facts.”
“It is insulting to insinuate that the good people at our county recorders’ offices across the state are not doing their jobs correctly,” the Arizona Democrat said. “Arizona election officials have always worked to ensure that only eligible citizens are registered to vote, and we will continue following Arizona law—not directions that come from political rhetoric or intimidation.”
