Santa Clara County refuses to share voter registration data or not count ballots despite DOJ demands

Caelyn Pender, The Mercury News on Oct 26, 2026

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Three days after the U.S. Department of Justice sent letters to counties across California demanding that they turn over confidential voter registration information and not process ballots of people it alleged are not citizens, Santa Clara County refused to comply with the request, stating that turning over such information would be in violation of state and federal law.

The county’s response comes amid increased action by the federal government to mitigate what it has alleged are noncitizens voting ahead of next week’s midterm elections. The action follows charges filed against 28 California residents last week for allegedly illegally registering to vote as foreign nationals and a lawsuit filed against California seeking to block the state from counting 20,000 ballots pending the verification of their citizenship.

Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters received a letter Friday from U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Craig H. Missakian asking that it help identify 902 people that prosecutors alleged are registered to vote but are “likely” not citizens within 48 hours. That number accounts for 0.08% of the 1,077,082 people registered to vote in the county.

The letter demanded the county turn over information about the alleged noncitizen registrants including social security numbers and voter registration applications. Missakian further said that employees of the county could face legal consequences if they count ballots submitted by noncitizens.

In a response letter addressed to Missakian, Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said that the county’s Registrar of Voters would be unable to process the DOJ’s request on the basis that the letter does not outline “specific, actionable information regarding the source or accuracy” of its allegations that the 902 people on the list were “likely” noncitizens.

“Be aware that 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,” LoPresti wrote. “The County reserves its rights to pursue all legal remedies against DOJ for its unlawful intimidation of election officials and California voters.”

LoPresti added that the DOJ has not given the county a judicial warrant for the information it requested, which it could have done if its allegations had a “sufficient evidentiary basis.” He said that the DOJ’s claims relied on “third party commercial data” and “the federal government’s notoriously inaccurate citizenship records.”

“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 902 individuals is just that — unsubstantiated,” LoPresti said.

The county conducted a “spot check” of the 902 names it was provided with, noting that none that were checked had “any history of a successfully counted ballot,” LoPresti added. One-third of those checked were voter registrations that had previously been canceled. He further noted that the first page of the list contained the same name three times, “suggesting there may be further duplicates throughout the list.”

LoPresti also said that the DOJ does not have the legal authority to direct how the county conducts an election, and that the registrar of voters is not authorized to “treat any registrant’s ballot differently.”

“The ROV does not, nor is it authorized to, independently investigate an applicant’s citizenship status,” LoPresti added. “Any investigation regarding a registered voter’s eligibility must be based on individualized evidence that would be referred to and handled by other enforcement and investigative agencies, such as the California Secretary of State or the California Attorney General.”