Non-citizens are receiving voting ballots from the Orange County Registrar of Voters, according to a lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division against the ROV.
“The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has recently received complaints from non-citizen residents of Orange County that they have received ballots from your office,” states a June 2 letter to the ROV from Maureen S. Riordan, the acting chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section.
The DOJ is demanding ROV records dating from
In a June 16, 2025 letter to the Justice Department, Registrar of Voters Bob Page admitted that non-citizens have received ballots.
“Records pertaining to 17 registrations of individuals who self-reported being non-citizens or whose ineligibility was confirmed by the Orange County District Attorney’s office, and whose registrations were cancelled accordingly, are available for download on OneDrive,” wrote Page.
Unless one believes those 17 individuals are the only non-citizens who received ballots, it follows logically there are more non-citizens in Orange County who are receiving ballots but not reporting that fact.
This logic has not escaped the Justice Department. In her June 2 letter, Riordan pointed out the obvious to Page: “despite the requirements of federal law, non-citizens in Orange County are being registered to vote.”
Citing statutory authority under the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, Riordan requested that the ROV provide the following, going back to January 1, 2020:
Records showing how many Orange County voter registration records were cancelled for not meeting citizenship requirements.
Records related to those cancellations, including “each registrants voter registration application, voter registration record, voting history, and related correspondence sent or received by your office n regard to the registration.”
Page’s office provided the aforementioned 17 “self-reported” non-citizen registrations, but redacted the driver’s license and identification card numbers, Social Security numbers, state Secretary of State-assigned voter
identification numbers, language preference, and images of registrants’ signatures.
The ROV claims state law prohibits providing this information to the US Justice Department.
The ROV also did not turn over registration applications that were rejected because the applicant didn’t self-attest to being a citizen.
The Justice Department responded swiftly in a June 17 letter telling Page the redactions prevent the DOJ from making “an accurate assessment of your compliance with HAVA. Moreover, the California statutes on which you relied to redact the information is pre-empted when it conflicts with our enforcement authority under HAVA.”
Riordan informed Page that unless he furnished them with the unredacted version of the documents by June 20, the Department of Justice would hit the ROV with a federal lawsuit “no later than June 24.”
On June 20, County Counsel Leon Page sent Riordan a letter that basically says the county wouldn’t turn over the unredacted records unless the Department of Justice can provide legal authority that requires the Registrar of Voters to produce the sensitive information redacted here without a subpoena and without any protection from public disclosure” in which Page said his office “would certainly be open to further consideration of the matter.”
The matter remained unresolved as the June 24 deadline approached. That day, Deputy County Counsel James Steinmann e-mailed Riordan, again claiming state law mandated they redact the identifying information sought by the DOJ while fishing for a way out of being slapped with a lawsuit.
“To avoid a lawsuit, would the USDOJ consider another mechanism to enable the County to provide the USDOJ with this sensitive information? For example, would the USDOJ be amenable to entering into a confidentiality agreement that would enable us to provide records with assurances that such sensitive personal identifiers will remain confidential and be used for governmental purposes only?” Steinmann asked.
The plea apparently went nowhere, because the following day, the U.S. Department of Justice followed through on its promise and filed suit against the Orange County Registrar of Voters.
So, the matter is now in the courts.
When contacted for comment via email, Page replied, “I cannot comment on pending or ongoing litigation. Thanks.” Shortly afterward, the county’s media department provided the correspondence referred to in this article.
James V. Lacy, head of the US Justice Foundation, applauded the DOJ’s actions. Lacy has led opposition to progressive efforts to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. Last year, he spearheaded the successful campaign to defeat a ballot measure to let non-citizens – including illegal immigrants – to vote in Santa Ana elections.
“Protecting the integrity of the voter rolls is a fundamental duty of the Registrar of Voters. The need is especially acute when progressive political groups are openly pressing to let non-citizens vote in local elections. Ensuring that every registered voter is actually an American citizen should be above politics. I urge the Registrar of Voters to cooperate with the US Attorney in every way,” said Lacy.
