California allows voters to register with gym card, insurance card, employer ID—none of which verify identity or citizenship: Bill Essayli

US Attorney for California Bill Essayli has attempted to undertake an investigation of California's allegedly fraudulent voting process, saying that "protecting the integrity of California's elections is a top priority for my office." However, he said that California is now blocking a federal audit of its voter rolls.

This is a state that "allows first-time voters to register" to vote using gym membership cards, employer ID cards, credit or debit cards, prescription drug labels, and insurance cards in a state that allows illegal immigrants to get state-funded insurance. None of these identification methods shows a social security number or proof of US citizenship. Essayli said this “policy deserves a closer look."

He noted that dead voters are not removed from the rolls in a prompt manner, nor those who have moved or those "convicted of disqualifying felonies." California also allows ballot harvesting, where the chain of command of a voter's ballot goes from the voter on to a person who collects ballots for delivery before being handed in for processing. Third party Democrat-backed groups routinely serve as the middle man.

"This makes it difficult to track who actually received, completed, and submitted each ballot," Essayli noted. He and the DOJ have spent over a year trying to audit voter rolls to make sure that only US citizens are permitted to vote, but California has stood in the way. Essayli sued, and that case is before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

California claims they do not have to comply with the federal ask. Essayli states that the DOJ's Civil Rights attorney Harmeet Dhillon "sent California a letter explaining our legal authority. California refused to comply, claiming state privacy laws block the review, an argument that does not hold up because those laws don’t apply to the federal government in this context."

The majority of Americans approve of a plan to require that voting be limited only to American citizens, with proof. An act before the Senate, however, the SAVE America Act, has been blocked by Democrats. Republicans, who have control of the Senate, refuse to override their instructions to get it passed, allowing states like California to continue to flout the law that requires citizens-only voting.