Denlay said federal agents threatened prosecution over counting 47 ballots attributed to noncitizens
Butte County Clerk-Recorder Keaton Denlay said federal agents threatened criminal prosecution as they delivered a letter demanding his office not count ballots from 47 people. The letters warned of potential charges for officials who knowingly tabulated ballots cast by people federal agencies identified as noncitizens. Denlay called the list a poorly formatted spreadsheet printout.
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Butte County Clerk-Recorder Keaton Denlay said federal agents threatened criminal prosecution as they delivered a letter demanding his office not count ballots from 47 people. He described the list as a print screen of a “poorly formatted excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information.” The county letters also warned officials of possible criminal charges for knowingly counting ballots cast by people federal agencies identified as noncitizens. Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus said he could not tell how many ballots prosecutors wanted segregated from the hard-to-read list. He said his county follows state and federal voter registration laws and would not deviate from them for the letter. San Benito County Registrar of Voters Francisco Diaz said his office received a demand with 33 names; a preliminary review found some were not registered.
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Verifier’s note
The Guardian reports Keaton Denlay’s allegation that federal agents threatened him with criminal prosecution, and Election Law Blog separately quotes Denlay’s account of the demand and describes the threatened criminal charges. Other results cover the broader California voter-roll dispute but do not report this specific allegation.