(Image Credit: IMAGN)
Orange County, California – The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit this week against Robert Page, the Registrar of Voters in Orange County, California, accusing him of violating federal law by refusing to provide records related to the removal of non-citizens from the voter rolls and by failing to maintain accurate registration lists.
The legal action, brought under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), marks a rare federal intervention in local election administration — and it places California, a state already politically divided over voting access and election integrity, back into the national spotlight.
At the heart of the dispute is a long-running tension between federal oversight and local control. The Justice Department argues that Page has obstructed federal enforcement of voter integrity laws by declining to disclose information about how non-citizens are flagged and removed from voter registration lists. In doing so, the DOJ contends, Orange County is in violation of both disclosure obligations and broader requirements to maintain updated and accurate voter rolls.
“Voting by non-citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal elections laws,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Dhillon added that ensuring non-citizens are removed from voter rolls is essential to “conducting elections in California without fraudulent voting.”
The lawsuit does not allege that widespread non-citizen voting occurred in Orange County or elsewhere in California. Rather, it focuses on whether the registrar’s office is complying with federal requirements to share records and maintain roll accuracy. Page has not publicly commented on the suit, and his office did not respond to requests for clarification about the DOJ’s allegations.
While HAVA was passed in 2002 to modernize and secure elections in the wake of the 2000 presidential election, its provisions — particularly those related to list maintenance and oversight — have become increasingly politicized. Some voting rights advocates worry that efforts to aggressively police voter rolls risk sweeping eligible voters off the rolls, especially in diverse and immigrant-rich areas like Orange County.
Still, the Justice Department insists the lawsuit is about transparency and compliance, not politics. The Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section is tasked with enforcing a suite of federal laws that govern elections, including the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act.
If the courts side with the DOJ, Orange County could be compelled to hand over the requested records and revamp its voter list management practices — a decision that may ripple across other California counties.
