US Takes Mass Action on Election-Related Crimes Ahead of Midterms

The Department of Justice has issued new grand jury subpoenas to several Northern California counties regarding alleged noncitizen voting activities, arriving just days before the November 3, 2026, midterm elections. Officials in Santa Clara and Sonoma counties confirmed receiving the legal orders from a grand jury operating under the direction of federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. These actions represent the latest escalation in a broader federal effort to compel California to segregate approximately 20,000 ballots that the Justice Department claims were mailed to potential noncitizens. State and local authorities have repeatedly refused to separate these ballots, citing concerns over the accuracy of the federal data and fears that such measures would disenfranchise eligible voters. The subpoenas mark a shift in strategy following the U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of a civil lawsuit seeking mandatory ballot segregation shortly before the election. While the civil path failed, the department has expanded parallel criminal investigations. These probes now appear to target not only individual noncitizens who may have voted in past cycles but also the conduct of state and local election officials. Two weeks prior to the midterms, Los Angeles County officials were similarly served with grand jury subpoenas demanding communications with federal officials and records detailing the county’s procedures for screening noncitizens from voter rolls. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk stated that the initial deadline for responding to those requests, set for November 4, has been extended by several weeks. Specific details of the new orders reveal a focus on compliance with previous federal demands. According to a spokesperson for Sonoma County, the subpoena received on Saturday seeks information regarding a specific individual the department alleges voted in prior elections. It also requests records showing how the county responded to Justice Department demands to segregate ballots cast by suspected noncitizens. A person familiar with the contents of the Santa Clara subpoena indicated it contained similar requests. Both sets of documents appear to scrutinize whether the counties complied with earlier federal instructions, despite multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court, refusing to mandate such segregation. Local legal representatives have pushed back firmly against the federal intervention. Joshua Myers, counsel for Sonoma County, stated that the registrar of voters is committed to fair and transparent elections in full compliance with the law while preserving access for all eligible voters. He asserted that there is no legal basis for the federal government’s request to segregate ballots, noting that doing so would violate laws ensuring safe and lawful election administration. Tony LoPresti, counsel for Santa Clara County, echoed this sentiment, declaring that the county has remained steadfast in its position that there is no legal foundation for federal attempts to interfere in the electoral process. Both attorneys indicated they are currently evaluating the scope of the document demands. Santa Clara County is not new to this type of scrutiny. A spokesperson for the county’s registrar of voters noted that the office received two grand jury subpoenas in early September requesting specific voter information. That spokesperson said other counties received similar requests during that period. This pattern aligns with a wider federal initiative to address election integrity. On November 2, the day before the midterms, the Justice Department announced charges against 63 individuals nationwide for illegal voting, fraudulent voter registration, and related offenses. The department stated that 195 noncitizens across 25 states had been charged with such offenses in the preceding nine weeks. Additionally, 239 people have faced voting fraud-related charges since the current administration took office. Attorney General Todd Blanche described the announcements as the largest surge of voter-fraud arrests since President Trump returned to office. The majority of the 63 newly charged individuals were described as lawful permanent residents who voted despite lacking U.S. citizenship, while four were identified as immigrants residing in the country illegally. North Carolina accounted for the largest share of these defendants with 18 cases, followed by California with 12, Tennessee with seven, and Texas and Pennsylvania with five each. Specific cases include Elizabeth Margaret Crudup, a Kenyan national in North Carolina, accused of voting in 18 elections between 2008 and 2026, and Gregory Eugene Wade, a Bermudan national, who allegedly voted in 12 general elections and two primaries. In California, Sirgalahad Camua, a Filipino national, was charged with falsely claiming citizenship to register in 2009 and voting in subsequent years before denying those acts during a 2025 naturalization application. Critics and voting rights advocates argue that noncitizen voting is rare, pointing to databases that record only 24 such cases between 2003 and 2023. They contend that the political timing of the prosecutions raises questions about the actual scale of the issue. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security announced arrests on November 3 of individuals from the Philippines, Italy, Finland, Algeria, and Iraq for voting in 2024. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin posted that ineligible voters would be hunted down and prosecuted. Separately, the Justice Department defended the accuracy of its claim that over 20,000 likely noncitizens remain on California’s voter rolls, rejecting an outside analysis that suggested more than 40 percent of the flagged names were not actually on the state’s rolls. The department plans to deploy over 1,000 monitors and observers to all 50 states to oversee the election process.