Three weeks after California’s June 2 primary, the federal government’s election fraud push in the state has produced zero charges, zero indictments, and eleven consecutive court losses on its voter rolls campaign — the only documented federal legal action in the record. The investigations announced by the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles exist as social media posts. No formal charging document, no press release, and no indictment has been filed on justice.gov tied to the June 2 election.
Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and a Trump appointee, posted on X on June 5 that his office had “multiple election fraud investigations underway” alongside the FBI. He provided no specifics. Two days later he posted again, stating California was “blocking” a federal audit of its voter rolls and that the case was before the Ninth Circuit. On June 9, he told the Glenn Beck Program, “I expect people will be charged.”
Essayli also acknowledged that proving misconduct changed any election outcome would require charging thousands of voters. He further acknowledged that doing so required the voter roll audit every court had already denied him. The FBI declined to confirm or deny the existence of any investigations, per standard policy.
The one prior criminal case Essayli cited in public statements was the arrest of a Marina del Rey woman charged with paying unhoused individuals on Skid Row to register to vote. That case predates the June 2 primary. It involves a single defendant on a single felony count.
California’s extended ballot count was not an anomaly. State law allows mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be accepted up to seven days after the election. County election officials have 30 days to complete the official canvass. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber stated on election night that the timeline was “normal” and that officials had a process “that by law ensures both voting rights and the integrity of elections.”
Final results were due to the Secretary of State by July 3 and certification was set for July 10 — both on the statutory schedule established before the election. The races resolved as counting completed: Karen Bass and Nithya Raman advanced in the Los Angeles mayor’s race; Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton advanced in the governor’s race.
The documented federal legal action is a voter rolls lawsuit that predates the primary by eight months. On September 25, 2025, the DOJ filed United States v. Shirley Weber (C.D. Cal. No. 2:25-cv-09149), demanding an unredacted electronic copy of California’s statewide voter registration list — names, Social Security numbers, home addresses, driver’s license numbers, and voting history — covering nearly 23 million Californians. California declined, offering instead to allow DOJ officials to inspect a redacted database in person in Sacramento. DOJ rejected that proposal and sued.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter dismissed the case on January 15, 2026 — more than six weeks before the primary. In a 33-page order, Judge Carter found that DOJ sought “an unprecedented amount of personal information” and that the agency could not use civil rights legislation “in a manner that wholly disregards the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution.” The court found that Congress, not the Executive Branch, must authorize any centralization of that data.
Carter noted the legislation DOJ invoked — the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the National Voter Registration Act, and the Help America Vote Act — was enacted to protect voting rights, not to build a federal voter database. DOJ appealed. The Ninth Circuit docketed the appeal as No. 26-1232 and heard argument on May 19. No ruling has been issued.
On June 24, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals became the first federal appellate court to rule on any of the DOJ voter roll lawsuits nationwide. In a 2-1 published opinion in United States v. Benson (No. 26-1225), the court affirmed dismissal of the DOJ’s identical lawsuit against Michigan. Judge Andre Mathis, writing for the majority, held that Michigan’s voter file is not a record DOJ can demand under Title III of the Civil Rights Act because the state created the file — it did not receive it from another source.
“An ordinary English speaker would not say that she has come into possession of something that she created, established, and maintained,” Mathis wrote. The court also found that DOJ’s demand letters failed to satisfy Title III’s requirement that the government state both the basis and purpose in a single communication. Judge John Nalbandian, a Trump appointee, dissented.
That ruling followed nine consecutive district court dismissals. On June 28, a federal judge in Pittsburgh dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Pennsylvania — the eleventh loss. No court at any level, appointed by presidents of either party, has ruled in the government’s favor. The DOJ has now sued 31 jurisdictions.
The voter rolls litigation runs parallel to a second front opened on March 31, 2026 — the same day a federal court in Boston permanently enjoined Trump’s first voting executive order. The March 31 order, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” directed DHS and the Social Security Administration to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state. It directed USPS to deliver mail-in ballots only to voters on those federally approved lists. It directed the Postmaster General to begin rulemaking within 60 days.
USPS published its proposed rule on June 2 — the day of the California primary. The rule would require states to submit voter lists to USPS before ballots are sent, mandate unique tracking barcodes on every ballot envelope, and authorize USPS to reject noncompliant mailings. The rule does not apply to primaries. It targets the November 2026 general election.
Postmaster General David Steiner confirmed in a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing that if a state refuses to submit its voter list, USPS will not deliver its mail ballots. “Under our proposed regulation, no,” Steiner said when asked directly. In court filings in a separate matter, DHS acknowledged it intends to cross-reference voter data collected from states with DHS datasets.
A federal judge blocked the USPS proposed rule on June 26, finding it exceeded the president’s constitutional authority. The Constitution’s Elections Clause reserves the power to set rules for federal elections to state legislatures and Congress. The administration has filed no public notice of appeal as of this publication.
Trump’s first voting executive order — issued March 25, 2025, requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register and altering mail ballot receipt deadlines — was permanently enjoined on January 30, 2026. The March 31, 2026 order was signed the following day.
What the record shows is three parallel federal efforts to restructure election administration: criminal fraud investigations with no charges, a voter rolls litigation campaign that has lost every case, and an executive order on mail voting that has been blocked by courts. All three remain active heading into November.
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