Keaton Denlay says a purported 47-person list left six possible voter-record matches, without establishing ineligibility. His office plans to continue its normal election work.
Butte County registrar Keaton Denlay refused a federal demand to set ballots aside after finding errors and missing information in a list of alleged noncitizens. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has also appealed US District Judge David O. Carter’s 28 October refusal to impose statewide ballot restrictions, leaving California election workers able to continue counting without the requested order.
DOJ sued California on 15 October after state officials did not comply with a 48-hour demand to set aside ballots while citizenship was checked. Its statewide list identified about 20,000 alleged noncitizens; the allegations do not establish that those people are ineligible to vote.
The Trump administration issued more than 100 subpoenas—legal demands for records—covering tens of thousands of voters in at least 13 Republican- and Democratic-leaning states, Reuters reporting carried by Al Jazeera found. Most went to state and local election officials during the three months preceding the 29 October report, although some dated to the start of 2026.
Those demands establish that the federal search for potential noncitizen voters reaches beyond California. They do not establish that the voters whose records were sought are noncitizens or ineligible. Noncitizens cannot legally vote in US federal elections.
Carter rejected a temporary restraining order, an emergency court order that would have required officials to set aside and not count mail ballots associated with DOJ’s list. He said the request would disrupt an election already underway and risk discounting US citizens’ votes. He also concluded that it would likely violate a 1993 law requiring states to remove ineligible voters from official lists no later than 90 days before an election. Setting a ballot aside would effectively remove it from the count, he reasoned.
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California mails ballots to all 23 million registered voters. Court filings said more than 3.7 million people had voted, and more than 500,000 ballots had already been removed from their envelopes for processing during the week of the ruling. Los Angeles County officials said those ballots could no longer be linked to individual voters.
This ruling was separate from a Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals panel’s 2–1 rejection on 26 October of the administration’s attempt to bypass Carter over the timing of his hearing. That majority said prosecutors’ claimed urgency was partly self-created because they had raised illegal-registration allegations since July and could have acted sooner. It did not decide the listed voters’ citizenship.
Denlay, Butte County’s clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, published his findings on the county website and described the errors to the Guardian. He said the two pages supplied to his office were copies of the same list.
| Measure | Number | What Denlay said |
|---|---|---|
| People described in DOJ’s letter | 47 | The letter alleged they were likely noncitizens unlawfully registered to vote. |
| Entries actually supplied | 46 | One name appeared twice. |
| Distinct names | 45 | The total after removing the duplicate. |
| Names absent from active voter rolls | 32 | These people had not been sent ballots. |
| Names with insufficient identification | 7 | Missing or partial details prevented a reliable check against voter records. |
| Remaining possible matches | 6 | DOJ questioned their eligibility; Denlay did not establish that they were ineligible. |
The six possible matches were not findings of noncitizenship, unlawful registration or illegal voting. Denlay cited California law requiring a challenger to provide “extraordinary proof” when disputing eligibility. He said DOJ had not met that burden because its list was inaccurate and insufficiently specific, and his office would continue its normal election work.
Denlay said a person identifying himself as a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent delivered the paperwork at about 3:30 p.m. on 23 October. Eric Grant, the US attorney for the Eastern District of California, which includes Butte County, signed the letter. It demanded additional personal information, including Social Security numbers, and gave the county 48 hours to respond.
The letter requested that officials set aside—not cancel—mail ballots from listed people whose citizenship the county could not independently confirm, until their status could be determined. It also warned election officials about criminal liability:
If persons knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens, they risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime.
Grant’s office declined to comment on Denlay’s statement. DHS did not respond to an inquiry.
California officials said the federal demands relied on unreliable data, risked preventing US citizens from having their votes counted and exceeded federal authority over state elections. At the 27 October hearing covered by CalMatters, Bill Essayli, the first assistant US attorney in Los Angeles, acknowledged that the statewide list could include citizens. He argued that the risk of illegal voting by noncitizens warranted action.
The two sides disputed a sample of 200 names from across California. Los Angeles County officials said in a court filing that many appeared to be citizens and most had neither voted previously nor been sent ballots. Essayli said federal investigators checked again and found only four citizens; he defended the information’s reliability.
In statements quoted by Fox News after the ruling, Essayli said voter rolls had been compared with federal immigration, Social Security and passport records. He argued that DOJ was enforcing existing rules rather than changing them during an election, and that counting noncitizens’ ballots would dilute citizens’ votes. Carter said DOJ had not explained how counting ballots would impair any prosecutions.
California election officials said they could not verify everyone’s citizenship before Election Day. At the 27 October hearing, Carter said he was likely to appoint a special master—a court-appointed reviewer—to weigh both sides’ evidence at a hearing two weeks later, potentially leaving a final ruling until after the election.
DOJ’s appeal goes to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Essayli said the department would immediately seek an emergency order there; the appeal itself does not impose the ballot restrictions Carter refused.
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