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# Mendocino Registrar Refuses Federal Demand to Set Aside Ballots of 23 Voters Flagged as 'Likely' Noncitizens
- URL: https://www.mendolocal.news/mendocino-registrar-refuses-federal-demand-to-set-aside-ballots-of-23-voters-flagged-as-likely-noncitizens/
- Published: 2026-11-02T19:59:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T19:59:31.000Z
- Description: Mendocino County's registrar refused a Justice Department demand to set aside the ballots of 23 voters it calls "likely" noncitizens and to hand over their records, saying state and federal law forbid it.
- Author: Elise Cox
- Tags: Elections, News, Mendocino County

UKIAH, Calif. — Mendocino County's top elections official has declined a demand from federal prosecutors to hand over confidential records on 23 local voters the Trump administration says are "likely aliens," and to set aside any ballots those voters cast, telling the U.S. Attorney's Office that doing so would break state and federal law.

In a two-page letter dated Oct. 28, Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie told U.S. Attorney Craig H. Missakian of the Northern District of California that her office takes the allegations seriously and is reviewing them, but that the federal government's assertion alone is not enough to keep a ballot from being counted.

"It would be illegal for my office to withhold otherwise valid ballots based only on the assertions made in your letter," Bartolomie wrote.

She also disclosed that more than half of the 23 people named on the federal list have already canceled their Mendocino County voter registrations.

Mendocino's refusal coincided with a federal ruling that was appealed to the Supreme Court today. Bartolomie sent her response on Oct. 28 — the same day a federal judge in Los Angeles denied the Justice Department's parallel bid to force California and Los Angeles County to set aside the same statewide list of roughly 20,000 voters, a ruling appeals courts have so far left in place. Mendocino is not a party to that case, but its stance mirrors the one that prevailed, and it places the county among the California election offices that rebuffed the federal demand as Tuesday's election arrives.

## What the Justice Department asked for

Missakian's letter, dated Oct. 23 and stamped received by the county Clerk-Recorder's office on Oct. 26, gave the county 48 hours to commit to working with the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security to determine which of the 23 people are citizens.

To do that, the letter asked the county to turn over nonpublic information tied to each registration: Social Security numbers, copies of state IDs or driver's licenses or the information on them, the original voter registration applications, and any documents the person presented when registering — including at the DMV, for those registered through California's "motor voter" program.

For anyone whose citizenship could not be confirmed, the letter asked the county to "segregate — not cancel" their vote-by-mail ballots, and to hold off processing any ballot that had already been returned until citizenship could be determined.

The letter warned that election workers who knowingly count ballots cast by people federal agencies have identified as noncitizens "risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime," citing federal statutes that bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections and that make it a crime to aid such conduct. It argued that California's reliance on voters' sworn self-attestation of citizenship does not relieve officials of federal obligations once they are "on actual notice of noncitizen voting."

Missakian also rejected the argument, raised by other officials, that the National Voter Registration Act's 90-day "quiet period" before a federal election bars the request. He wrote that the restriction covers only systematic purges of voter rolls, not targeted action against individuals, and that the department was seeking only temporary segregation of ballots, not cancellations.

The letter pointed to Los Angeles County, which received a similar demand and refused, as an example. By the time the Mendocino letter went out, the Justice Department had already sued the state and Los Angeles County in federal court in Los Angeles to force those ballots to be set aside. Mendocino is not named as a defendant in that suit.

The names, birth dates, and addresses of the 23 Mendocino County voters were blacked out in the copy of the letter released by the county.

[10.23.26 Notice of Suspected Aliens on Voter Roll (Received 10.26.26)\_Redacted (1)10.23.26 Notice of Suspected Aliens on Voter Roll (Received 10.26.26)\_Redacted (1).pdf1 MBdownload-circle](https://www.mendolocal.news/content/files/2026/11/10.23.26-Notice-of-Suspected-Aliens-on-Voter-Roll--Received-10.26.26-%5FRedacted--1-.pdf "Download")

## How the list was made

Attached to the letter were two sworn declarations filed in that lawsuit, United States v. State of California, describing how federal agencies built the statewide list.

According to Nicolas Bartell, an associate director at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' fraud detection directorate, the agency received a copy of California's voter rolls around May 8, 2026\. It combined that voter data with information from what it called "a reliable third-party data analytics and investigative platform," matched voters against internal immigration records, screened out people identified as citizens or deceased using State Department and Social Security data, and then had investigators manually review the matches, followed by a second-level review.

Eric McLoughlin, an assistant director at Homeland Security Investigations, said his office received "what appeared to be the California voter roster," which he believes reflects the state's rolls as of August 2025, and further refined the data using federal law enforcement systems before delivering a list of just over 20,000 names to the Justice Department on Oct. 13.

Both declarations note in a footnote that USCIS later found about 189 records on the list with "minor data discrepancies." Bartell also said USCIS has flagged a separate batch of more than 17,000 voting records for possible review.

The declarations do not say how many of the 20,000 people actually returned a ballot.

## The county's response

Bartolomie's reply, addressed to Missakian and sent by email, opens by stating that "Mendocino County is committed to ensuring the integrity of our elections" and that her office will cooperate with federal authorities "to the extent permitted by law."

But on the records request, she wrote that she is legally prohibited from releasing the confidential information without statutory authority, citing state Elections Code privacy protections, state regulations, and a 2026 federal court ruling in United States v. Weber, a case in the Central District of California.

On setting aside ballots, Bartolomie pointed to California law that lets a person establish citizenship for voting purposes by signing the voter registration affidavit under penalty of perjury, and to a provision of the state Elections Code requiring that any doubt be resolved in favor of a challenged voter. A federal allegation that someone is "likely" a noncitizen, she wrote, is not enough to establish that anyone is ineligible — and therefore the county has not received "actual notice" of noncitizen voting.

She also reminded the U.S. Attorney that federal law makes it illegal for election officials to refuse to let a qualified voter vote.

Bartolomie left the door open, writing that if federal authorities provide "additional individualized information" about specific voters or further legal authority for the request, she will review it and reconsider.

[2026-10-28-Response to DOJ2026-10-28-Response to DOJ.pdf240 KBdownload-circle](https://www.mendolocal.news/content/files/2026/11/2026-10-28-Response-to-DOJ.pdf "Download")

## The bigger picture

Mendocino's 23 names are a small slice of a statewide effort. In late October the Justice Department sent demand letters to election officials in 57 of California's 58 counties, each with a county-specific list: San Bernardino County's letter named 1,133 people, Santa Clara's 902, Contra Costa's 407, Santa Cruz's 81, Napa's 42, and Amador's four. Letters to Northern California counties, including Mendocino, came from U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian; those to Southern California counties came from Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles.

The list's accuracy is disputed. In a court filing, Los Angeles County reviewed a 200-name sample of the statewide list and reported that about 43% of those registrations had already been canceled, roughly 70% of the sampled voters had no voting history, and — among records where a birthplace was meaningfully reported — 38.9% indicated the person was born in the United States, which the county called a strong indicator of citizenship. The county also said only 7,035 of the roughly 20,000 names had Los Angeles County addresses. 

Federal officials pushed back: in a sworn declaration filed Oct. 26, USCIS official Nicolas Bartell said that of 51 sampled voters whose California records indicated U.S. birth, none were born in the United States according to USCIS immigration records, though he allowed that four "might have a claim to U.S. citizenship." Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter has acknowledged the list is not flawless, telling reporters, "There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens, we're not perfect."

On Oct. 28, after a hearing the day before, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied the Justice Department's emergency request to force California to set aside the ballots, finding no legal basis for the demand and the government's list unreliable, and warning that segregating ballots days before the election would "wreak havoc" on the vote. Carter, a Clinton appointee, also ordered the department to stop threatening election workers with prosecution, while noting the DOJ remains free to prosecute individuals it can prove voted illegally. 

A divided federal appeals panel declined to overturn that result. 

Then, on Monday, Nov. 2 — the day before the election — the Justice Department asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency order requiring California to set aside the roughly 20,000 ballots while its appeal proceeds, arguing through Solicitor General D. John Sauer that once the challenged ballots are "commingled" with lawful ones, "there is no way to get the challenged ballots back." The Supreme Court had not ruled as of publication of this article.

The DOJ letter itself noted that the department had, in the days just before, charged 28 people from the statewide list with unlawful voting and registration offenses.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.