Only Citizens Vote. California Should Be Eager to Prove It.

The Justice Department wants roughly 20,000 flagged mail ballots set aside until citizenship is checked. Sacramento's answer has been to fight it in court instead of checking.

By Clara Hughes

Here is a principle almost every American agrees on: only citizens get to vote in federal elections. It's not a Republican idea. It's federal law, written into 18 U.S.C. § 611. So when federal agencies flag more than 20,000 California voters as "likely noncitizens," the natural response from a state that values clean elections would be simple: let's check, quickly, before those ballots are counted. That is not what's happening. What the Justice Department actually asked for The Justice Department filed United States v. California on Oct. 15 in federal court in Los Angeles. It asked the court to order the state to set aside mail ballots from voters on that