President Donald Trump’s sweeping claims of voter fraud are being challenged by figures from his own Justice Department. The administration is being asked to explain its broad allegations of fraud in California after federal prosecutors brought charges involving just 34 allegedly illegal ballots out of nearly 94 million cast in the state since 2020.

On Monday, prosecutors made public a statewide investigation into noncitizen voting and announced charges against 28 lawful permanent residents. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, 23 of those individuals are alleged to have cast 34 ballots among them in elections dating back to 2020.

Those ballots represent 0.00004 percent of the votes cast in California’s eight statewide contests during that period. The figure is far below the scale that would support the administration’s claims of widespread illegal voting.

The Justice Department and California have been in conflict over the issue — a standoff between federal authorities and a state government that controls its own voter-registration records. In July, the Department of Homeland Security released a preliminary review claiming that it had identified more than 190,000 possible noncitizens registered to vote in California. By October, that figure had fallen to about 20,000. The Justice Department sued after state officials declined to comply with federal requests to identify suspected noncitizens and prevent their votes from being included in election totals.

Despite those earlier estimates, the criminal cases unsealed Monday involved fewer than three dozen questionable ballots across the entire state.

The 28 defendants are U.S. residents but not citizens, meaning they are barred from voting in federal elections. They face charges including making false statements on naturalization documents and fraudulent voter registration. As criminal cases, the allegations will now be tested in federal court, where prosecutors must prove them.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said the prosecutions fulfilled the administration’s demands, referring to the 28 people identified on government’s list of suspects. “California refused to look at that list,” he said in a Justice Department statement.

Election experts disputed the significance of the cases. Rick Hasen of UCLA’s election law program described them as a “drop in the bucket” compared with the 23 million voters on California’s voter rolls. Hasen also noted that some of the people charged had registered illegally but never cast a ballot.

The cases do not establish whether every person on the administration’s list is a legitimate voter. They do, however, show how few cases federal prosecutors have brought compared with the department’s earlier estimates. McCotter has acknowledged that some people on the list could ultimately be shown to be U.S. citizens. How prosecutors proceed with the remaining names, and how the courts handle the department’s suit over access to state registration records, are the next stages of the dispute to watch.

Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized the administration as it sought access to voter-registration records. Federal judges have already rejected its request for the full voter rolls, citing privacy and legal concerns. California officials maintain that the records are properly managed and reject Trump’s assertion that the state’s elections are rife with fraud.

Primary source: Alternet. Related references: Trump, California voter fraud, noncitizen voting, and Gov. Newsom’s office on X.