Newsom Warns Judges of Possible Ballot Seizures

Gov. Gavin Newsom sounded an alarm on Saturday to federal judges in California. The unusual alert went out to the four federal district courts in the state, the New York Times reports, warning that the Trump administration could seek search warrants to seize ballots or voting machines before midterm results are certified—moves he argued would amount to meddling with the state's ballot count. The Trump administration already asserts more than 20,000 "likely noncitizen" voters are on California rolls, a claim state officials deny.

Also on Saturday, UCLA data scientists contended in a filing that the federal list is riddled with errors, including many apparent citizens and thousands of names not found in state records. Two former federal judges separately urged colleagues to be extremely cautious about approving warrants targeting ballots or voting machines. Newsom included a nonpartisan guide for evaluating search warrant applications that the district judges could distribute to lower-level magistrates, per the Times.