A voter drops off their ballot in a ballot drop box at the Los Angeles County Registrar during early voting in the state’s primary election in Norwalk, California, on June 1, 2026. (Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber said DOJ was “demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information.”
In what one former election official called a significant “escalation” of President Donald Trump’s interference in the midterm elections, his Department of Justicesued California on Thursday for not disqualifying over 20,000 mail ballots from voters it claims could be noncitizens.
The suit comes two days after acting Deputy US Attorney General Trent McCotter sent a letter demanding that, within 48 hours, state election officials set aside ballots from a list of voters it determined were ineligible to vote using federal databases administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—systems that have previously been shown to regularly spit out errors.
When other states, like Nevada, Texas, and Missouri, have used the DHS system to vet their voter rolls for noncitizens, investigations have found that it incorrectly flagged hundreds of US citizens as ineligible to vote.
California officials have said the list of names was provided to them on a thumb drive, which came with a password written on a sticky note. They did not consider this to be a secure device and refused to open it. The letter was sent more than a week after California began sending mail ballots to 23 million registered voters.
The state refused to set the ballots aside, saying that the administration had not provided credible evidence that the voters were not citizens and that eligible voters could be disenfranchised. In its complaint Thursday, the DOJ called on the court to stop the ballots from being tallied until the citizenship status of each voter could be independently verified. It also requested that the state not send a ballot to anyone who has not yet received one.
The DOJ’s batch of roughly 20,000 supposedly ineligible voters is a significant reduction from the 190,000 that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin alleged were registered in the state back in July. When California asked for the underlying data and methodology for that figure, DHS declined to provide it.
“What happened to those 170,000?” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta at a press conference on Thursday. “They just got those wrong.”
🚨BREAKING: The DOJ sued California for sending mail ballots to 20k people the Trump administration claims are likely noncitizens.
The lawsuit comes after the DOJ threatened legal action if the state did not set aside cast ballots of those flagged until their citizenship status… pic.twitter.com/MVQmAzOdeF
This highlights the concerns states have expressed about using the DHS system to purge their voter rolls. In refusing the DOJ’s request, state officials have noted that in Nevada, the system flagged 185 voters as possible noncitizens only for state officials to determine that every single one of them was a US citizen.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber responded to the DOJ’s lawsuit with a sharply worded letter, accusing it of “demanding unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide.”
Weber described it as an effort to block “thousands of Californians’ right to vote” weeks before an election and said, “The extraordinary measures you demand are contrary to both federal and state law.” Federal law prohibits states from systematically purging voter rolls within 90 days of an election.
“We are not impressed with the federal government’s letter. We are not impressed with its lawsuit,” Bonta said. “This is what the federal government does. They lie, they advance misinformation, disinformation, they advance conspiracy theories. They try to sow distrust with those lies.”
“Their timing is rife with and smacks of and reeks of desperation and bad faith, to do this during an election,” he said.
Stephen Richer, the former Republican Maricopa County recorder in Arizona, described the government’s lawsuit as “a real escalation by the federal government.”
“I’ve mostly said ‘Calm, calm. It’s going to be OK’ with respect to federal involvement in election administration,” he wrote on social media. “This lawsuit—in October, in the middle of early voting—that asks election officials to disqualify certain voters based on suspect databases, not conclusive evidence, which definitely could have been alleged before early voting began… This does represent an escalation.”
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Voting Rights Project filed an emergency brief on Thursday seeking to stop the DOJ from using its list to withhold ballots.
“With voting already underway, eligible citizens should not have their ballots withheld based on a federal list they have never seen and have had no opportunity to challenge,” said its director, Chad Dunn. “We are asking the court to intervene before voters suffer harm that cannot be corrected after Election Day.”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the Trump DOJ “is now actively trying to interfere in the 2026 elections and strong-arm California into purging names from our voter rolls and blocking mail ballots based purely on vague allegations less than three weeks before Election Day.”
He added, “This lawsuit has no legal basis or evidence behind it and is nothing more than a blatant abuse of power designed to sow distrust in our elections and threaten Americans’ right to vote.”
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Displaced Yemeni families, who fled Houthi attacks on their villages in Taiz and the western coast region, receive food and shelter supplies provided by aid organizations in Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2026. [Abdulnasser Alseddik – Anadolu Agency]
More than 230,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Yemen since August, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said on Thursday, Anadolu reports.
Haq told reporters that the fighting between the Houthis and the internationally recognized Yemeni government continues to force people from their homes and place additional pressure on humanitarian operations, citing warnings from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
“Our colleagues at the International Organization for Migration have reported more than 230,000 people displaced by fighting since the start of August,” said Haq.
Despite the challenges, humanitarian partners have reached more than 152,000 people with emergency assistance, he added.
“We reiterate our call on all parties to respect international humanitarian law, protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and allow safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access that includes safe passage for supplies, patients, ambulances and medical teams,” he stressed.
Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since the Houthis seized the national capital Sanaa, and several provinces in 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
The current escalation began in July, after a period of relative calm following a UN-brokered truce that took effect in April 2022.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
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A view of the heavily damaged city infrastructure and destroyed buildings while displaced Palestinians struggle to survive in makeshift tents along the coastline of Gaza City, Gaza, Palestine, on October 07, 2026. [Ali Jadallah – Anadolu Agency]
Nearly a year after the UN Security Council endorsed the Board of Peace to oversee Gaza’s transition, questions over who controls it, and in whose interest, have not gone away. For Anouar El Gharbi, president of the Geneva Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (GCDHR), the problem begins with the Board’s origin. It was not born of an independent international process grounded in the freely expressed will of the Palestinian people, he told MEMO in an interview, but of a political initiative led by the US. That origin, he argues, shapes everything that follows: the scope of the Board’s mandate, the powers it holds and the people it answers to.
The Board emerged from the “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict” advanced by US President Donald Trump. The Security Council endorsed the plan on 17 November 2025 through Resolution 2803, adopted by 13 votes with Russia and China abstaining. The resolution recognised the Board as a transitional administration with international legal personality and authorised a set of operational arrangements on the ground.
El Gharbi rejects any suggestion that this grants the Board permission to place itself above the law. Its work, he insists, “must respect the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, the prohibition on acquiring territory by force and the obligations of international humanitarian law”.
Asked whether the backing of the Security Council settles the question of legitimacy, he points to the sequence of events in the formation of the board. “Washington designed the initiative and shaped the framework under which the Board operates, and the Council’s endorsement came afterwards.” This, he says, “raises serious questions about the Board’s independence, about how far Palestinians take part in its decisions and about whether there is adequate international oversight to hold it to account”.
El Gharbi draws a clear distinction. A temporary international framework to support reconstruction, humanitarian aid and transitional administration is one thing; a political trusteeship over Gaza is another. The right to self-determination, he says, belongs to Palestinians, and no outside power can exercise it on their behalf.
International law, El Gharbi explains, gives no state or international body an unrestricted right to impose permanent political arrangements on a people under occupation. “Transitional arrangements must stay within their mandate, be subject to effective oversight and must not displace legitimate Palestinian institutions or weaken the ability of Palestinians to exercise their political rights,” he says.
Accountability is a recurring concern. Although Resolution 2803 gives the Board an international legal framework, the Board is not a subsidiary organ of the UN. That, El Gharbi says, makes it crucial to spell out who is responsible for what among the Board, the participating states, the operational bodies and the international institutions involved. Legal personality, he stresses, does not exempt an entity from its obligations under international law, nor does it grant unlimited immunity from the courts.
“The scope of any privileges and immunities must be determined by the relevant legal instruments,” El Gharbi says. “They cannot simply be presumed to extend to every act or every official associated with the transitional arrangements.” He warns that Palestinians would pay the price if this is not resolved. “Excessively broad immunities, inadequate accountability, or decisions about public resources and property taken without proper legal safeguards could seriously endanger the rights of Gaza’s population, including their access to justice and to effective remedies.”
On the role of Palestinians themselves, El Gharbi is unequivocal. The Palestinian people, he says, remain the holders of the right to decide their political future and how their territory is governed. Resolution 2803 does provide for a Palestinian technocratic committee to run day-to-day administration, but in his view meaningful participation must go well beyond administrative tasks. It must shape the decisions that determine Gaza’s governance, its reconstruction and its long-term political future. “Shutting Palestinians out of real decision-making,” he argues, “would undermine the political legitimacy of the whole arrangement and raise serious doubts about whether it is consistent with the right to self-determination.”
Nor, in El Gharbi’s view, does the new arrangement relieve Israel of its responsibilities as the occupying power. “Setting up an international transitional mechanism or a local administrative committee does not, by itself, end Israel’s obligations under international law towards the occupied Palestinian territory,” he says. “The obligations arising from the law of occupation must be judged against the relevant legal criteria and the facts on the ground, and new governance arrangements cannot wipe out existing responsibilities or absolve any party of accountability for violations it has committed.”
El Gharbi also points out that international humanitarian law requires the protection of civilians and the delivery of essential aid. Access to food, medicine, shelter and basic services, he says, must not be made subject to unlawful political conditions that put civilian lives and dignity at risk.
El Gharbi is concerned, too, that continuing violence and obstacles to reconstruction raise questions about the practical effectiveness of the transitional framework, and whether it can protect civilians, support humanitarian recovery and ensure compliance with international law.
This is not, he insists, an argument against international help for Gaza. The danger, he says, is that a mechanism of this kind could reduce the Palestinian question to a humanitarian and security matter and sideline the core legal and political issues of occupation, self-determination and national rights.
“Transitional powers must not become a way of entrenching prolonged external rule over Gaza, or of cementing its separation from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory,” he stresses. “Resolution 2803 grants only a time-limited authorisation, subject to further action by the Security Council, and this time limit must be respected in practice. It cannot be used to justify open-ended foreign control without the meaningful participation and consent of Palestinians.”
The resolution itself, El Gharbi maintains, must be read and implemented in line with the UN Charter and international law, including peremptory norms and the right of Palestinians to self-determination. It cannot reasonably be treated as a blank cheque for any state or body to decide the permanent political future of Palestinian territory regardless of the rights of its people.
El Gharbi calls for clear and effective international oversight of the Board, greater transparency in how it takes decisions and a precise definition of the powers and responsibilities of everybody involved, and of how each will be held to account. He also urges human rights organisations, legal institutions and independent monitors to scrutinise how the arrangements are carried out, particularly where they affect Palestinian rights, public property, humanitarian access, access to justice and the ability of Palestinians to run their own affairs.
In the end, El Gharbi returns to the point where he began. No political initiative led by the US, he says, can take the place of the freely expressed will of the Palestinian people. A Security Council resolution is not enough on its own to make an international arrangement legitimate; that arrangement must also comply with international law and respect fundamental rights. A lasting peace, he argues, requires three things: respect for international law, the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and a lawful end to the occupation. Without them, he warns, any transitional arrangement will remain fragile, no matter how many powerful states stand behind it.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham admits to blatently lying and engaging in deception to become leader of the UK Labour Party and Prime Minister.Ed Miliband says that he and the Labour Party are full of shit criminalising people holding signs as terrorists despite anything he says.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Large crowds gathered at Dam Square in Amsterdam October 11, 2026. [Mouneb Taim – Anadolu Agency]
Large crowds gathered at Dam Square in Amsterdam on Sunday, for a pro-Palestinian demonstration marking three years since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Anadolu reports.
Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and called for an end to violence against Palestinians.
Participants also urged the international community to take action and impose sanctions on Israel.
Since October 2023, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians and injured over 175,000, according to Palestinian figures.
The war has also destroyed 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure, Palestinian figures have shown.
A ceasefire agreement was reached in October 2025, though Israel continued its attacks and maintained restrictions on the entry of food, medicine and shelter materials into Gaza, where almost the entire population faces severe humanitarian conditions.
Israeli violations of the ceasefire deal have killed more than 1,470 Palestinians and wounded over 5,180, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Trump at a campaign rally in Syracuse, New York on Friday. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
President complains about not winning prize in year he started war with Iran and says: ‘We will not forget, Norway’
Donald Trump complained Friday about not winning the Nobel peace prize for 2026, a year in which he started a war with Iran.
At what was supposed to be a rally for other Republican candidates in Syracuse, New York, the US president devoted a long portion of his speech airing his grievances with the Nobel committee.
“The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel peace prize, but didn’t. And this is an indelible stain on the country of Norway, and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” Trump said.
“The Nobel peace prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilization,” Trump went on. “We will not forget, Norway, that you didn’t give this prize.”
Trump also recited a list of wars he claims to have settled, some of which were not wars and some that are still not settled, before adding: “I’m about to settle or win two more: Iran and Russia-Ukraine.”
Donald Trump says that he obviously deserves a Peace prize because Obama got one and explains why he established his Bored of PeaceOrcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
