Los Angeles County is officially the undisputed champ of vote cheating. And we know this because their election officials just admitted in court that they don't check who illegally votes there.
Election integrity experts have long known that if you want to mess with elections, Los Angeles County is the place to go. Most provisional ballots are voted there and, of course, California has same-day registration right up to 8 p.m. on Election Day, so it's a dream scenario for those who want to cheat.
Universal mail-out balloting has made everything worse.
Now, the election officials in that most populous county in the country in the most populous state in the union admit their voter rolls are a complete mess. And they like it that way. They don't want to know if their voters are illegally voting, even though it ruins the sanctity of elections and tramples the rights of U.S. citizens.
In a court filing, L.A. County elections officials admit that they have no idea if their voters are citizens of the United States or if a voter is just a guy who drove up from Tijuana, arrived by a panga boat in Carlsbad, or flew to LAX from Albania to vote in United States elections.
Bill Essayli, who's still the unconfirmed (thanks, John Thune) U.S. Attorney in the Central California region, which includes L.A., said this court filing is a "major concession."
Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. (They simply take their word for it.)
Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections. Yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California.
And it matters, obviously.
California is a sanctuary state. The millions of illegal aliens whom state officials invited arrive, then begin draining resources from hard-working and overtaxed Californians, and then dilute — steal, if you like — their votes.
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The Motor Voter law ensures they get identification, and many, if not all, are registered to vote. Some of them vote. L.A.County doesn't check. Indeed, they just take the word — the attestation — of the voter that he or she is legal.
In the legal filing in the case brought by the Justice Department, the L.A. County Registrar of Voters confirms this.
California could participate in the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which has been around since 1986, if they wanted to verify citizenship, but the sanctuary state actively chooses not to. It’s been used verify citizenship for benefits since the 80s, and California used to participate.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 20, 2026
So California could verify citizenship with a preexisting program that's been around since the 1980s, but refuses to because sanctuary.
The Justice Department wants a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to segregate and withhold ballots associated with the alleged 20,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls that the feds found in California.
But Assistant Registrar Monica Flores claims that she and her staff have no way of checking citizenship:
The Registrar is not equipped to register or authorized to verify voter citizenship-related information beyond the voter attestation as identified in federal and state law ... and is certainly not able to do it within the election period.
This is another way of saying that they refuse to comply, that they've been running out the clock on the feds' requests, and now we couldn't possibly comply with the requests because, sheesh, we've got an election coming up within days. We're busy, dontchaknow.
She says the state doesn't allow them to check.
Gavin Newsom's office snarkily, as usual, confirms this.
@USAttyEssayli California adheres to Federal Law passed by Congress in the 1990s [see 52 U.S.C. 20504(c)(2) (Section 5 of the NVRA)] May want to brush up on your election law before tweeting. Perhaps Second Assistant is more apt from now on?
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) October 20, 2026
So the state conforms to an election law that has nothing to do with checking the citizenship of the voters. Got it, Gav.
Let's put this in perspective. Los Angeles County has a population of nearly 10 million. That means its population is larger than that of 40 entire U.S. states. I had Perplexity AI make me a table graph to show you:
L.A. County's outsized representation in the body politic can move elections. California is granted congressional representation based on population — illegal aliens and fraudulent voters included. And it puts into question bragging rights about "winning the popular vote," Hillary.
Statewide, things are worse by multiple orders of magnitude, of course. California's Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, refused to look at the list of 20,000 likely illegal voters given to her by the feds recently. Catherine wrote about this in Feds Arrest 28 Registered Noncitizen Voters, All From List of 20,000 Sent to California.
That's likely because then she'd have to acknowledge that she has personal knowledge of and has seen proof that people are illegally voting in California. And since she's in charge of elections, goodness knows she doesn't want to do that.
Essayli confirms that 11 of these illegal voters were rolled up by the feds this week. They face years in federal prison if convicted.
Essayli said at his presser that “the arrests prove what we have been saying. California is mailing ballots to noncitizens, and they are refusing to comply with federal law, which makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote. The voting rights of American citizens must be protected."
It's not much to ask, unless you're asking a sanctuary state.
Here are just two examples of people charged with illegal voting.
Rouzbeh Seyamaknejad, 63, a Canadian national and Rancho Palos Verdes resident, fraudulently registered to vote in December 2018, lied in his naturalization application in January 2024, and voted in the November 2024 U.S. election.
Sulema de León, 35, a Mexican national and Long Beach resident, fraudulently registered to vote in 2013, lied on her naturalization application in 2019, and voted in the November 2020 U.S. general election.
This November, California voters are being asked to pass a voter ID law which is being vigorously fought by Democrats.
Some of those voting in the election will be illegally voting on this issue and canceling out a citizen's vote.
California Democrats in leadership should have done something about that already, but California Democrats don't care as long as they keep "winning" elections.