The Brief

Early results from a special election in Santa Ana show Councilmember Jessie Lopez staving off a recall attempt.

As of Wednesday evening, 56% of votes tallied were against ousting Lopez, according to the Orange County Registrar of Voters.

The registrar has more than 400 ballots left to process, with more likely to trickle in by mail in the coming days. In all, some 26,700 people were eligible to vote in the recall election — the turnout so far is 25%. The next vote count update is scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m.

Lopez was targeted for recall by the Santa Ana Police Officers Association and several real estate groups, largely because of her voting record in favor of rent control and policies that her opponents deemed "anti-police." They cite as an example Lopez's 2021 vote against a law that would have made it illegal to be a spectator at street races.

Lopez told LAist earlier this month that the recall effort has been spearheaded by "special interest groups that push policies that harm working class people."

Legal questions

The recall election has been mired in legal questions. After ballots had been sent out, O.C. Registrar Bob Page said he realized the city was using the wrong district boundaries and the wrong population data to calculate how many signatures were needed to trigger the recall and who would get to vote.

As a result, he said nearly 1,200 voters who should have been eligible to vote did not get ballots.

Using the correct district boundaries, Page also calculated that the initial recall petition actually fell short of the number required to hold an election by 230 signatures. In late October, Page rescinded his initial verification that recall petitioners had met the signature threshold.

Based on these problems, a voter in Lopez's district filed a court challenge to the recall in early November. The Orange County Superior Court judge in that case decided not to issue a ruling until January.

Shannon Ortiz, a resident of Ward 3, which is represented by Lopez, said she was aware of the legal questions surrounding the recall but was casting her ballot anyway.

"I don't have personal control over whether this is happening today, but I do have control over my own vote," she said outside a vote center in Santa Ana on Tuesday.

Kathy Hettick said she hadn't heard of the legal problems with the special election, but she had gotten a lot of mailers from both sides of the recall.

"I get mail saying vote 'yes,' I get mail saying vote 'no,'" she said. "That really bothers me because that costs money."

What happens next?

If there are more votes to be counted beyond Wednesday’s 5 p.m. update, the O.C. registrar will update the results on subsequent days until all ballots are counted. The registrar has until Dec. 8 to certify the results.

It’ll be up to Santa Ana’s city council to then accept the results. At the end of last month, they deadlocked on whether to cancel the election because of the district boundary issues raised by the registrar's office.

The U.S. Department of Justice has attempted to use a number of tactics in recent weeks to remove California voters they say are likely noncitizens from state voter rolls — despite the voting process having already begun.

Election security experts told LAist, however, that the federal government’s case is unlikely to succeed, and that voters should proceed filling out their ballots as normal.

“I don't think most people in the L.A. area or beyond will actually encounter any of the disruption that the administration is trying to project,” Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt said.

The backstory

Last week, Department of Justice election officials sent a list of 20,000 California voters it says it has “high confidence” are not citizens. (L.A. County election officials said they received records on a thumb drive, which they could not open for security reasons.) Two days later, the Trump administration sued California for not complying with its request to use the list to remove any noncitizens from local voter rolls.

California on Tuesday filed an extensive response to the DOJ lawsuit, saying it “borders on the absurd.”

Separately this week, the DOJ announced it had filed charges against 28 people, accusing them of registering to vote as noncitizens.

What is the DOJ claiming?

DOJ representatives said Monday they are attempting to keep U.S. citizens’ votes from being canceled out by noncitizens.

“We have an election coming up next month,” Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney, said. “Our biggest priority is to safeguard the integrity of the election.”

Essayli suggested he may prosecute election officials who knowingly process ballots “once we’ve informed them who the non-citizens are” and indicated the DOJ is working on “many more cases.”

Regarding the list sent to state and local officials, DOJ officials also said they have “high confidence” — not complete certainty — that the people on the federal government’s list are noncitizens.

“There may be some names on there who it turns out ultimately are citizens,” Trent McCotter, acting deputy attorney general, said Monday. “We're not perfect, and that's why we've asked California to cooperate with us.”

In a court declaration filed today, L.A. County Assistant Registrar Monica Flores said the DOJ’s list is “unreliable.” Analyzing a sample of 200 records, she said a majority are not active voters, and nearly 40% of the records indicate the individual was born in the U.S.

The L.A. County registrar of voters said officials here did not comply with the request to use the federal list and began coordinating with state officials — a point DOJ officials stressed on Monday, with McCotter saying this is “an emergency of their own [California’s] creation.”

Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor who runs the school’s Safeguarding Democracy Project, disagreed.

“The federal government didn't produce its list of voters or its methodology to California until just a few days ago, so this is not an emergency of California's own making,” Hasen said. “It is not the federal government's job to decide who is on voting rolls. That is a job that is given to states.”

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment for this article beyond pointing to Essayli’s X social media feed.

What role will local election officials play?

In large part, Hasen and Levitt said officials will play the same role that they always have, even though more eyes will be on them. County election officials send out ballots, process and verify signatures, and reach out to voters if there are any outstanding issues. The registrar then has 13 days to report on ballots to the state, including provisional ballots and same-day registration ballots, and 30 days to finish counting them.

That said, Hasen said Essayli’s threat of possible criminal prosecution against election officials is “really dangerous” — even though he said these cases are also unlikely to succeed.

“We've got a threat of criminal prosecution against election administrators for not being aggressive enough in policing voting rolls to the Trump administration's liking,” Hasen said. “Even if they were negligent in how they policed their voting rolls, there's no criminal liability here.”

What should voters do?

Levitt, who previously worked on voting rights at the Justice Department, said he doesn’t think Trump’s DOJ is serious about the legal merits of their lawsuit against California.

“I can completely understand that people may be freaked out,” he said. “Part of what DOJ is doing is an attempt to freak people out.”

For their part, local officials have reassured voters that they should proceed to cast their ballots. In a statement, L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn called the DOJ’s actions “voter intimidation and a blatant attempt to undermine trust in our midterm elections.”

Levitt recommended voting as early as possible to give voters time to check their registration and resolve any issues. If you have concerns, he recommended visiting an early voting center in person.

Hasen encouraged voters to double-check the status of their ballots to ensure they’ve been processed and counted.

“We have very good ballot tracking,” Hasen said. “California is not going to simply start throwing out ballots from people who are on an unvetted federal list of supposed noncitizen voters.”

What’s the future of this lawsuit?

Hasen and Levitt said the legal problems with the federal government’s arguments can be traced back to federal law and the Constitution.

“The Constitution gives states the power to run elections subject to Congress passing laws that can override that,” Hasen said. “There's no congressional override that would give the federal government the authority to do this.”

That makes the DOJ’s case unlikely to succeed, the professors agreed.

“It's possible that a court might not even really deal with it at all,” Levitt said.

What about the people accused of voting fraud?

The charges announced this week against 28 people accused of registering or voting as noncitizens, however, may be more successful, depending on the evidence presented in each case.

“Isolated cases of alleged voter fraud occur in red and blue states alike, and they should be prosecuted wherever they occur,” a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

But Bonta noted that the 28 people charged represent 0.0001% of California’s registered voters. The percentage is about the same in L.A. County: The 12 L.A. County residents charged this week make up roughly 0.0002% of people on the voter rolls.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing for possible “Super El Niño” storms that could damage schools and lead to closures, the district announced in a media release Tuesday.

District staff are clearing drains, trimming trees and checking roofs, windows and doors. LAUSD is also testing emergency equipment, including pumps and emergency lighting systems, and stocking supplies such as flashlights and drinking water.

“Preparing for severe weather starts well before the first raindrop,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said in a statement. “We can’t control the weather, but we can take steps now to protect our students and employees and help our schools stay ready.”

The district will monitor weather patterns using information from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials, it said.

LAUSD encouraged families to update their contact information to ensure they receive district calls, texts and emails. Families should also monitor weather alerts, follow emergency officials’ instructions, avoid flooded roads and review safe routes to and from school, according to the release.

“Preparing for a storm is a shared effort — from the crews maintaining school buildings to the principals reviewing emergency plans and the families making sure they can receive critical updates,” LAUSD said in the release. “By taking these steps before the rain begins, Los Angeles Unified is working to help students and employees stay safe and keep school communities as prepared as possible for the winter ahead.”

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.