Newsom Warns Judges on Ballot Warrants as UCLA Audits DOJ List

Three days before Election Day, California Gov. Gavin Newsom sent letters on Saturday to the chief judges of California's 4 federal district courts cautioning that federal agents could seek search warrants to seize ballots, election records, or tabulating equipment before the state certifies its results on Dec. 11, according to reports by Jennifer Wadsworth in The San Francisco Standard and Barry Holtzclaw in San Jose Inside. On the same day, a sworn court declaration by University of California, Los Angeles researchers revealed that 8,880 of the 20,930 names — 42% — on a Justice Department list of alleged noncitizen voters do not correspond to anyone on California's current voter rolls, The Associated Press reported via KCBS Radio.

Newsom Writes to 4 Federal Chief Judges and Shares UC Berkeley Warrant Guide

Newsom emailed his Saturday letter to Chief District Judges Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (Northern District of California), Troy L. Nunley (Eastern District), Dolly M. Gee (Central District), and Cynthia A. Bashant (Southern District). While noting he was unaware of any pending warrant application, Newsom warned that after losing in federal civil court — where U.S. District Judge David O. Carter and a federal appeals panel rejected bids to segregate more than 20,000 mail ballots — federal officials could pivot to criminal search-warrant requests.

The governor cited letters sent by Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and social media posts by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli, as well as grand jury subpoenas issued to 3 Los Angeles County election officials ordering them to appear the day after the election. Newsom enclosed a September 2026 guide from UC Berkeley's Edley Center on Law and Democracy, "Questions for Assessing a Search Warrant for Election Materials," urging chief judges to circulate it to all magistrate judges. On Wednesday, Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a parallel advisory referencing the earlier seizure of 2020 ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, and in September Newsom signed Assembly Bill 282, making the unlawful seizure of ballots before certification a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

UCLA Voting Rights Project Finds 42% of 20,930 Flagged Names Not on California Rolls

After a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ordered the federal government on Friday to turn over its 20,930-name list in a lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the UCLA Voting Rights Project, UCLA political scientist Matt Barreto and data scientist Michael Rios filed a sworn analysis on Saturday co-signed by project adviser Xavier Becerra:

• 8,880 Names Missing Voter File Matches: Exactly 8,880 of the 20,930 names (42%) do not match anyone on California's active voter file, and federal officials had stripped voter identification numbers from the spreadsheet.
• Confirmed Naturalized Citizens Flagged: Comparing the list against CHIRLA's membership roster uncovered at least 22 exact matches and 66 near-certain matches to confirmed naturalized U.S. citizens, while applying the government's matching methodology across the state was projected to falsely flag nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens. Earlier re-reviews of 200 flagged Los Angeles County names also found 4 individuals with citizenship claims, and Washington state officials similarly reported that a 400-name federal list included a voter from the 1990s.