San Diego County Rejects DOJ’s Demand of ‘Thinly Veiled Voter Purge’

by Jake Kincaid / inewsource / October 28, 2026

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters told the U.S. Justice Department that it won’t comply with a demand — accompanied by a legal threat — to turn over private voter information like Social Security numbers and to not count ballots from 1,709 San Diego voters until their citizenship can be verified.

In a defiant letter Tuesday, the county said it is “legally prohibited” from doing so. And it offered a legal threat of its own: “The County reserves its rights to pursue all legal remedies against DOJ for its unlawful intimidation of election officials and California voters.”

The letter from County Counsel Damon Brown to California Southern District U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said,

“The DOJ’s request is a thinly veiled voter purge and request for confidential voter information without a proper purpose.” [Our emphasis]

The San Diego County Registrar of Voters Office received Gordon’s demand letter Friday with a 48-hour deadline and a warning that “the legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring federal crimes are significant.”

Every county in California received a similar letter.

The Imperial County Registrar of Voters also told the DOJ it would not comply with a request to withhold the ballots and provide confidential information of 161 Imperial County voters.

Both San Diego and Imperial county’s deadlines lapsed Sunday. The responses, obtained by inewsource, went out Tuesday evening.

The county said the federal government’s request was an “invitation to violate both state and federal law based on nothing more than unsubstantiated suspicions regarding a person’s citizenship.” The county also said the requested actions “would be a breach of voters’ trust of the highest order.”

The letter said that a spot check of a random 10% of the names on the U.S. government’s list “reveals significant reasons to doubt the reliability of that list.” It said 59% of some 170 voters had canceled voter registrations and 74% have no record of voting in San Diego County.

That sample adds to mounting criticism of a list that includes about 20,000 California voters.

The Los Angeles County Registrar also found significant issues in a sample of 200 names, saying 71% had never voted and over half had inactive or canceled voter registrations. Thirty-eight percent  had been born in the U.S., suggesting they were citizens.

Imperial County told the DOJ that “nothing in your Correspondence nor the enclosed list of names provides sufficient evidence to establish that any registered voter on that list is not a citizen.”

Last week, a federal judge ordered Department of Homeland Security officials to halt field operations underway in nine states focused on potential voter fraud, finding it relied on flawed and incomplete data that is widely known to include U.S. citizens. The judge said the operations could be intimidating voters and voter outreach groups with early voting under way.

The DOJ had previously filed five subpoenas for 25 individual voter records, and the registrar had said it complied with the request as legally required. That culminated in four individuals being charged for voting related crimes in San Diego County and in Gordon’s letter last week.

Both the San Diego and Imperial county response letters state that the request for confidential voter information without a court order or a confidentiality agreement is prohibited under California law.

“The fact that your letter requests confidential voter information in order to confirm DOJ’s unsubstantiated allegations against County residents is further proof that the list of 1,709 individuals is just that — unsubstantiated,” Brown wrote. “DOJ certainly knows how to obtain a judicial warrant and could have done so if it had a sufficient evidentiary basis for the allegations in the letter,”

Brown also noted that it is the California Secretary of State, not the San Diego County Registrar of Voters that is responsible for verifying voter eligibility.

U.S. Central District of California Judge David O. Carter is expected to rule Wednesday on a lawsuit by the DOJ over whether it can compel the secretary of state to comply with the same demands.

ABC News reported that in a hearing on Tuesday, Judge Carter said “this court believes it would be wise that any threats to state and county elected employees cease immediately,” and that he is considering appointing a special master to evaluate the DOJ’s allegations.

The letter the county sent back to the DOJ doesn’t take the threats lightly.

“We consider DOJ’s efforts to threaten California election officials with criminal  sanctions for following federal and state law to be an effort to unlawfully intimidate both election officials and California voters.”

The county ended its letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office saying the Registrar of Voters Office, which has repeatedly said local elections will proceed as normal, “will continue to comply with federal and state laws while it conducts free and fair elections in this county.”

A spokesperson for the Southern District of California declined to comment.

Update 3 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 28: This story was changed to include Imperial County’s response to the Justice Department and the Justice Department’s response to a request for comment.

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Here is the Fox5-KUSI version:

San Diego County is refusing a request by the U.S. Department of Justice to reject nearly 2,000 ballots over alleged noncitizen voting and is threatening a legal fight.

“We all trust that when we register to vote our information is held and it’s only used for the purposes of voting. Here the Department of Justice has been asking states to turn over all of their data,” said Art Castanares, political analyst and publisher of La Prensa San Diego.

Now states like California, including San Diego County, are saying no.

In a six-page letter Tuesday, the county made clear it will not turn over “nonpublic” voter registration information —including Social Security numbers, state ID and/or driver’s license information, voter registration applications, and a copy of any documents presented during voter registration— to the DOJ.

The feds sent Registrar Shawn Brom a letter on Oct. 23, along with a list of 1,709 voters they claimed are “likely” noncitizens and want their ballots held until their citizenship is verified.

“What they’re looking at is surnames. They’re looking at addresses. People may have a foreign address, that’s perfectly legal. You can be registered in San Diego and be living temporarily somewhere else,” said Castanares.

He also pointed to every county in California having received similar letters. “Statewide they’re claiming 20,000,” said Castanares.

The registrar was given 48 hours to “commit to working with DOJ and DHS to identify who on the accompanying list is a citizen and who is not” or face legal consequences, but in his response to Southern District of California U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon, county counsel Damon Brown said the registrar is “legally prohibited” from doing so.

He also said the registrar “follows all state and federal laws that govern election administration,” and added that the DOJ provided no information regarding the “source” or “accuracy” to confirm the feds “unsubstantiated allegations” but rather the DOJ’s letter was “accompanied by declarations from two individuals who state they helped create the statewide list of alleged noncitizens.”

The county’s letter described the DOJ’s actions as a “thinly veiled voter purge” and included threats to “pursue all legal remedies against the DOJ for its unlawful intimidation.”

FOX 5/KUSI reached out to the Southern District of California for comment back did not hear back in time for this report.