Yellow Jacket InitiativeBy E. Lawrence Anderson, Yellow Jacket Initiative
Update, Thursday, October 29, 2026. Since this post: on Wednesday, Oct 28, the district court denied the restraining order, and the United States appealed the same day. On Thursday, Oct 29, the court appointed a technical special master and set a Nov. 13 hearing. Follow-up: United States v. California: the judge denies the restraining order, the government appeals, and a special master will examine the list. The original text below is unchanged.
As of Tuesday, October 27, 2026, about 7:30 p.m. ET (4:30 p.m. PT). Sources: the district court filings in United States v. California, No. 2:26-cv-12025-DOC-ADS (C.D. Cal.), Dkt. 107 and 107-1 to 107-4, and Dkt. 131, read in full on CourtListener. Dkt. 107-2 to 107-4 are scans; every quotation below was checked against the filed pages.
On Monday, Oct 26, the night before a scheduled hearing on its request to have about 20,000 mail ballots set aside in California, the Justice Department filed four new declarations (Dkt. 107). The filing's signature block is dated Sunday, Oct 25; the court stamp says it was filed Oct 26. Everything below is what the declarants swore. None of it is a finding by the court.
How the list was built. Nicolas Bartell, Associate Director of the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) at USCIS, filed his second declaration (Dkt. 107-2). He writes: "This process is distinct from the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program. The SAVE program was not utilized as part of this review process" (para. 14).
USCIS "enhances that voter data through Lexis Nexis's Accurint Service (Accurint)." It sends Accurint a voter's name and street address, city and state, and gets back, "when available," other names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and death, phone numbers and associated addresses (para. 15). The combined records are paired with "an internal USCIS alien number that may be the same individual" (para. 16). USCIS then screens matches against State Department passport data and Social Security Administration citizenship and death data. "If a Social Security Number is not available, this query is not submitted" (para. 17). Investigators review matches by hand, and a second-level review follows (para. 19).
The complaint filed Oct 15 described the matching tool only as "third-party software" (as reported in our Oct 21 post). This is the first filing we have read that names the product.
A second batch. Bartell writes that USCIS "has identified a separate batch of more than 17,000 voting records potentially tied to noncitizens after an initial review of voter rolls," and that "Historically speaking, most voters in this initially flagged population will end up being referred to HSI" (para. 24). A footnote says USCIS found "approximately 189 records with minor data discrepancies" on the list of 20,930 sent to California on Oct 13.
Where the voter roll came from. Eric McLoughlin, an Assistant Director at Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), filed his second declaration (Dkt. 107-3). "On or about March 19, 2026, HSI received what appeared to be the California voter list from a DHS senior counselor." He says the list appeared credible in part because it came with a document showing it was obtained from the California Secretary of State's Office (para. 5).
That document, Exhibit A, carries the Secretary of State's release language: "You are approved to use this data only for the purpose stated in your application – not for any type of commercial purpose. Authorization must be obtained from the California Secretary of State before this data can be used for any other purpose or before it can be transferred to another party." This is the Secretary of State's standard wording for releasing voter data.
A summary chart attached to Bartell's declaration says the roll "was purchased from the California Secretary of State and provided to HSI." Bartell says FDNS received the list from HSI on or around May 8, 2026 (para. 21). The two receipt dates are each declarant's.
The filings do not say who applied for the roll, what purpose the application stated, or whether authorization to transfer it was sought or given. We draw no inference on those points.
The County's sample. Los Angeles County had cited a 200-name sample of the list in its opposition. In a separate declaration (Dkt. 107-1), Bartell says the County's counsel sent USCIS that sample on Oct 26. He says the County claimed "38.9% (77.8 people)" said they were born in the United States (figure as written). USCIS, he writes, "identified 51 individuals on the DHS List where California's voter roll indicates the person claimed to be born in the United States," but found that none it matched to the sample was U.S.-born "according to USCIS records" (para. 12).
On re-review, "four subjects might have a claim to U.S. citizenship, three of which potentially derived citizenship through a parent," and one person was deceased (para. 13). A footnote says none of the four has conclusive proof of citizenship and adds: "there is always a risk for human error." The declaration does not say how many of the 200 USCIS matched, so the four cannot be stated as a share of anything.
The redacted page filed as Exhibit C shows the column headers of USCIS's comparison sheet. They include "SSN," "referred_to_ICE" and "date_referred_to_ICE." The full sheet (Exhibit B) is lodged with the court in camera.
Ballot handling. Clinton Curtis, the Registrar of Voters for Shasta County, filed a declaration (Dkt. 107-4) answering Los Angeles County's election officials. He states that California's election systems "can flag the ballots of likely noncitizens identified by the United States" and that sorting machines can segregate them, and that "locating and segregating challenged ballots is entirely possible and not catastrophic."
The response. On Tuesday, Oct 27, voting-rights groups seeking to join the case (LULAC and the NAACP) filed a notice in response (Dkt. 131). They say the declarations came "Less than 15 hours before the hearing" and "without seeking leave." They attach a supplemental declaration from their expert, who, as they quote him, says the government's reliance on Accurint "is likely to yield a higher percentage of false positives or mismatches." They also ask the court to take judicial notice of news coverage of Mr. Curtis's handling of ballots in Shasta County and of an Aug 11 county board censure. Those are their claims. We have not read the expert's declaration itself.
The case for the filing. These are sworn declarations filed to answer specific points in the County's opposition, on the court's schedule for the hearing. Explaining a matching method in more detail, and re-checking a sample the other side produced, is what a party is expected to do. Commercial identity services like Accurint are widely used by government agencies, and the declarant states each match went through manual and second-level review, with State Department and SSA screening for citizenship and death.
Not established. The list's accuracy. How many of the 200 sample names USCIS matched. What the "51" counts: the declaration defines "DHS List" as the full list of about 20,930, but the sentence sits in its discussion of the sample. Who the "DHS senior counselor" is. What Accurint returned for any person. The court's ruling, if any, after the hearing set for 1:00 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Oct 27: as of this post we have not read a record of the hearing or any order, so none is reported here.
Why we are following it. A list now before a federal judge, as the basis for whether specific ballots are counted, was built outside SAVE from a purchased state voter roll, a commercial data product, and SSA and State Department records. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov 3, seven days from today.
Earlier: Letters to California counties, and the Justice Department's last brief before Tuesday's hearing (Oct 26).
Primary sources: United States v. California, No. 2:26-cv-12025-DOC-ADS (C.D. Cal.), Dkt. 107 (Supplemental Declarations, filed Oct 26, 2026); Dkt. 107-1 (Bartell, re Sample List); Dkt. 107-2 (Bartell, second); Dkt. 107-3 (McLoughlin, second); Dkt. 107-4 (Curtis); Dkt. 131 (LULAC and NAACP notice, Oct 27, 2026); district docket.
Read the text.
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