The Trump DOJ is suing California right now to stop noncitizens from influencing American elections.
Sacramento's response arrived last week – a letter sent to every school principal in the state.
What California is asking those principals to do makes the DOJ's concerns look like an understatement.
What California Is Authorizing Noncitizen Poll Workers to Do
On June 30, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond put their signatures on a letter that landed in the inboxes of principals, charter school administrators, and county superintendents from one end of the state to the other.
The letter invites schools to serve as polling locations and actively recruits students as young as 16 to work inside them on Election Day – including lawful permanent residents who are not American citizens and cannot legally vote.
That is not a side detail buried in the fine print.
The letter explicitly states that "U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents" aged 16 and older who maintain a 2.5 GPA are eligible to serve as poll workers in the November 3 general election.
These teenagers are not stationed outside directing foot traffic.
California law puts them at the check-in table with the official voter rosters, authorizes them to hand voters their ballots, run election equipment, and lock up the precinct at the end of the night.
Every function that determines whether a vote gets counted – they can do it.
The state admits it does not fully track how many noncitizen teenagers are serving in these frontline positions of trust.
https://twitter.com/nataliegwinters/status/2075618839744872945
California Election Integrity Is on the Line for November House Control
This is not a footnote in a race that doesn't matter.
November 3 is a federal midterm election, and control of the U.S. House runs directly through California.
Four California congressional districts are competitive in November – one a toss-up, three leaning only narrowly Democratic.
The Trump DOJ has sued California and 29 other states demanding access to voter roll data to identify potential noncitizen voters.
Federal judges have so far blocked that access.
Gavin Newsom signed legislation in May explicitly designed to protect California elections from what he called federal "interference" – meaning the Trump administration's efforts to verify citizenship on voter rolls.
And now, into that exact environment, Shirley Weber is running a recruitment campaign through California's public school system to staff polling places with teenagers who aren't American citizens.
The law permitting this goes back to 2013 and 2016 legislation signed by Jerry Brown.
Republicans opposed it then, arguing only U.S. citizens should administer American elections.
They were right, and the question has only grown more urgent.
California already allows noncitizen parents to vote in San Francisco school board elections.
Oakland has an approved charter amendment – still unimplemented – that would allow noncitizen parents to vote in school board races.
Santa Ana tried and failed at a ballot measure that would have opened all local elections to noncitizens.
California Democrats are moving noncitizens toward full voting rights one step at a time.
Every step California takes makes the next step feel smaller – and Weber just took another one by sending that letter to thousands of schools across the state.
The state's position is that noncitizen poll workers serve under adult supervision and pose no threat to election integrity.
The state's other position is that it doesn't track how many noncitizen teenagers are actually deployed.
Those two positions cannot coexist.
If this program is as tightly supervised and limited as California claims, the numbers should be easy to report.
The fact that Sacramento doesn't know – and apparently doesn't want to know – tells the whole story about who designed this system and why.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said it after California's June primary dragged on for weeks: "Whether you can prove fraud or not, it does undermine voter integrity in the vote."
California Democrats called that observation dangerous.
Meanwhile, their Secretary of State was drafting a letter to recruit noncitizen teenagers to staff the polling places where those votes will be cast in November.
Sources:
- Natalie Winters, "EXCLUSIVE: California Recruiting Noncitizen Teenagers to Administer Elections," The National Pulse, July 10, 2026.
- California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber, Ph.D., Poll Worker Information, sos.ca.gov/elections/poll-worker-information.
- California Elections Code Section 12302, Student Poll Workers.
- Staff, "Trump Attack on California Election Offers Midterm Preview," News From The States, June 11, 2026.
- Staff, "Democrats Warn Trump and Republicans Are 'Laying the Groundwork' to Challenge Election Results," MS NOW, June 11, 2026.