873,000 'ghost' voters revealed in California as Trump slams attempted Dem 'steal' of elections—officials say count will take 37 more days

As the California primary elections have yet to finish the final vote tally, a lawsuit against California’s secretary of state has been launched, calling into question thousands of voters who are unqualified at the ballot box. This comes as President Donald Trump has said that California officials are attempting to "steal" the election as the vote count is dragged on for days.  

Don Wagner, the Orange County Supervisor and Republican candidate for secretary of state, has joined the American Independent Party of California in a lawsuit against current Secretary of State Shirley Weber. The suit alleged that there are 873,092 inactive voter registrations still on the books. Trump has also taken aim at the California election system as the primaries are set to take up to 37 days before a final vote is known as of Wednesday night. 



Trump wrote on Truth Social, “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS."

The lawsuit was filed through Judicial Watch, and claims that Weber, a Democrat, is violating federal election laws that require inactive voter registrations to be removed once two federal general elections have passed.

The lawsuit alleged that for the last two general elections, there have been at least 800,000 inactive voter registrations that have stayed on the rolls. It also claims that 151,202 of the registrations have been on the rolls for the last four federal general elections.

“As of December 9, 2025, 873,092 California registrations had been continuously inactive for at least two general federal elections; 326,808 of these had been continuously inactive for at least three general federal elections; 151,202 had been continuously inactive for at least four general federal elections; and 33,922 had been continuously inactive for at least five general federal elections—that is, since before November 5, 2016,” the lawsuit states.

Additionally, the lawsuit claims that state officials have not done anything about the issue.

The lawsuit requests relief from a judge by ordering the defendants in the case to “develop and implement a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rolls in California.”

“Judicial Watch’s federal lawsuit confirms California has a dirty voting rolls crisis — with thousands of old names on the rolls going back at least 10 years,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. And California and its counties must take immediate steps to clean the over 870,000 dirty names on the voting lists.”