Bay Area election officials challenge DOJ voter demands as federal court battle continues

A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's emergency effort to stop California from counting certain mail-in ballots. Now, this comes after federal prosecutors recently sent letters to county registrars across the state demanding local officials set aside and verify ballots the DOJ said may belong to non-citizens. KTVU's Betty Yu, here now in studio with how Bay Area election officials are responding to those very letters. Betty? My several Bay Area counties are pushing back after the Justice Department gave them just 48 hours to comply with its demands. I spoke with election officials who say that they're continuing to process ballots as usual, and they're reassuring voters that their ballots will be counted. On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department's emergency effort to stop certain California ballots from being counted. The DOJ claims more than 20,000 registered voters statewide may not be U.S. citizens. In Santa Clara County, it identified 902 suspected non-citizen voters demanding their confidential registration records and their ballots be set aside. But county council says the federal government has no authority to do so. Moreover, they're saying that we have to segregate the ballots, but there's no basis for us to do that. Again, we have to carry out an elections process ethically according to the laws that exists, not on the basis of some random letter that the DOJ sends to us based on an unsubstantiated list of voters, which, by the way, has been shown to be flawed. In Contra Costa County, 407 names were flagged, but the registrar says the county is continuing to process ballots as usual unless a court orders otherwise. You can vote with the utmost confident. We have many security protocols in place at our office. You know, we are processing ballots already. We will continue to process ballots. For us, you know, what we want people to do is vote. In Solano County, the DOJ flagged 170 names. The registrar says its review of a sample of those found 55 percent were no longer eligible to receive ballots, including people who had died. None of those individuals were sent ballots for this election. I would hope that voters that are hearing this would attribute this to kind of noise that's out there. We're not making any changes. We're not jeopardizing anybody's record. If you have voted in the past, we would fully expect you to participate the way that you always do. The legal fight isn't over. A federal judge is set to hear the case Tuesday, and the dispute could reach the Supreme Court by the end of the week. This is about creating election interference. The merits here on the issues, the legal issues are not paramount because, look, elections are administered. The processes occur at the state level. The federal government's had a long time to deal with this. They haven't done that. And so pushing back on that, you see the Santa Clara Council, the county council, they're saying, look, there's no standing here. Their issues are not here. And for California to kick people off of the rolls is something that has to happen more than 90 days out from the election. And Governor Gavin Newsom responded to today's ruling, calling it a positive development and accused the Trump administration of overstepping its constitutional authority. Again, county election officials saying that they're moving forward with the election as planned with no changes to how ballots are being processed. Mike. So Betty, tonight we are hearing from Bay Area election officials. What about other counties across California? What are they finding here? Well, Los Angeles County, they reviewed a sample of 200 names from the DOJ's list and they found that it included canceled or inactive registrations and voters who appear to have been born in the United States. And officials in Mendocino County, they received a list of people who were not actually residents there. So these findings raising some serious questions about the accuracy of the DOJ's information. Got it. Election date, November 3rd. Betty, appreciate it. Thank you.