The facts
The US Department of Justice sued California on Thursday, seeking a court order to prevent the state from tabulating certain ballots cast in the midterm elections. The suit was filed after the department sent election officials in Los Angeles County a thumb drive on Tuesday, purportedly containing the names of noncitizens registered to vote. The department requested that officials confirm the citizenship of anyone on the list and set aside ballots from those whose status could not be confirmed, giving the state 48 hours to act. The department did not provide details on how it compiled the list. In its lawsuit, the justice department stated it had provided the state with over 20,000 names of likely noncitizens. Los Angeles County Clerk and Recorder Dean Logan stated his office would not review the list, partly because the USB drive was not considered secure. Logan added that the Department of Justice had not provided underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions, and that his office could not refuse or fail to count ballots based solely on unverified allegations. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber stated the justice department had not provided the list to her office and that its efforts to access protected voter data and purge voter rolls serve only to cause chaos and fuel public distrust in elections. Justice department lawyers are asking the court to order the state not to count votes from those flagged as likely noncitizens until their citizenship status can be determined.
Our take
The US Justice Department is now officially a fucking clown car on fire, careening into a lawsuit because California had the basic fucking sense not to plug in their sketchy-ass thumb drive. These pricks rolled up to Los Angeles County with a USB stick - the preferred data transfer method of high school plagiarists and Russian hackers - containing what they ‘purportedly’ claim are 20,000 names of noncitizens. They didn’t say how they got the list. They didn’t provide any evidence. They just handed over a piece of plastic and said, ‘Here, start fucking with people’s votes based on this.’ It’s the electoral equivalent of a stranger handing you a baggie of white powder and demanding you count it before the cops arrive. Dean Logan, the LA County Clerk, looked at this bargain-bin bullshit and basically said, ‘We’re not installing your probable malware, you absolute dicks.’ And for that act of not being a gullible cunt, the Justice Department sued him. Let’s be clear: this isn’t about election integrity. This is about some federal lawyers so desperate to look like they’re ‘doing something’ about the Big Lie that they’ve resorted to legal theater with props from the fucking Dollar Store. They gave the state 48 hours to act on their unverified digital whisper, and when California told them to piss up a rope, they ran to a judge to demand ballots be set aside. No methodology, no source, just vibes and a lawsuit. It’s a grift, a pathetic performance of authority for an audience of one, using our democracy as a prop. The only thing on that thumb drive is almost certainly a steaming pile of shit and the collective embarrassment of every lawyer who signed this frivolous, fascist-adjacent complaint. Fuck your thumb drive. Fuck your lawsuit. Count every vote, you bastards.”
