California's Failure to Track Noncitizen Voter Removals Violates Federal Law and Undermines Election Integrity Assurances
Source: Jordan Sekulow. "California Admits It Doesn't Track Noncitizens On Voter Rolls." August 17, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that California is breaking federal law by not keeping records on how many noncitizens are removed from voter rolls or how illegal voting complaints are investigated. He says this lack of tracking, combined with California's admission that AG's office has no formal investigation policy, proves the state isn't actually safeguarding against noncitizen voting despite claiming otherwise.
Conclusion
California is violating federal law (NVRA) and failing its transparency obligations by not tracking or maintaining records on noncitizen voter registration cancellations and illegal voting investigations, which undermines its claims that safeguards against noncitizen voting are effective.
Premises
- California's Secretary of State admitted its voter registration system does not contain a specific cancellation reason code for non-citizenship, unlike other cancellation reasons (death, felony, moving)
- The Secretary of State's office could not provide any statistics on outcomes of investigations into illegal voting, stating it does not maintain such records
- California's Attorney General's office admitted it has no written policy for handling investigative referrals of illegal voting
- Federal law (NVRA, 52 U.S.C. § 20507) requires states to retain and make publicly available records showing how they maintain accurate voter rolls for at least two years
- The selective absence of a citizenship-tracking category, while other cancellation categories exist and are documented, suggests a deliberate policy choice rather than a technical oversight
- California relies solely on a self-attestation checkbox and perjury threat for citizenship verification, with no verification or tracking mechanism to confirm this is enforced
- California's AB 60 driver's license program does not require proof of citizenship, and driver's licenses are used to establish voter identity, creating a parallel vulnerability to New Jersey's documented noncitizen voter registration problem
Assumptions
- The absence of tracking data implies inadequate enforcement rather than simply an administrative gap in categorization that doesn't reflect actual enforcement practices
- Federal NVRA recordkeeping requirements specifically mandate citizenship-status cancellation tracking, not just general list-maintenance records
- A lack of documented policy for investigative referrals means no investigations or enforcement actually occurs in practice
- The comparison to New Jersey's noncitizen voter registration issue is a valid analogy applicable to California's system
- Self-attestation under penalty of perjury is inherently insufficient without additional tracking/verification to prevent noncitizen voting