Department of Homeland Security general counsel James Percival vowed to find, charge and deport noncitizens who cast illegal ballots in midterm elections.
Page T30From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 1 November 2026
DHS vows prosecution of noncitizen voters off a database that can't verify four in ten matches
As it ran on the front
James Percival, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, vowed on November 1st to find, charge and deport any noncitizen caught casting an illegal ballot in the midterms, two days before the polls close. Follow along, because the vow lands on a particular stack of paper, and the paper does not say what the podium says it says.
The paper starts September 25th, when the Supreme Court split six to three and let Homeland Security run state voter rolls through SAVE, the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — a database built to check benefit eligibility, pressed into checking citizenship with ninety days to stand up before an election. The same database, when California ran its own voter file through it, came back with mismatches on more than four in ten of the records it was asked to check. Four in ten is not a margin of error. It is the thing the general counsel's vow is standing on, and it does not hold its own weight.…
…(cont) On October 26th, the Ninth Circuit ruled two to one against the Justice Department's separate bid to make California pull aside and reverify, ballot by ballot, the mail votes of twenty thousand registered voters the government says are not citizens. On October 29th, the Justice Department announced charges against eighteen more noncitizens in North Carolina, bringing this year's statewide total to thirty.
Then, on November 1st, two days before the polls close, Percival stood at the podium and promised prosecutions off the strength of the same instrument that cannot confirm the identity of more than four in ten people it has already checked. The same month, a separate court found that twelve days was not enough time to verify a single student ID; this bench found ninety days was plenty to verify an entire state's voters. Follow along, all together now: the document does not trust itself, and the man holding it is promising arrests anyway.
“They took a database built to check food stamps, taught it to check citizenship, and it gets four names out of ten wrong — now the same office is promising deportations off those odds. That's not law enforcement, that's a coin flip wearing a badge. Two days before the polls close, somebody's neighbor is the coin.”
“Look, a mismatch just means the record needs a second look, that's due diligence, that's — okay, a second look on four out of ten names does sound like a lot, but if you're not voting illegally you have nothing to worry about. The courts keep blocking the actual verification piece, sure, but the prosecutions are moving forward on their own, which — actually I'm not sure those are supposed to work independently of each other. Next question.”
Earlier in this story
- Washington announced 380 arrests in Springfield once, then stopped counting. By Sal · the afternoon edition, 1 November 2026
- A database built to confirm citizenship can't confirm four in ten names are registered voters. By Mitch · the afternoon edition, 1 November 2026
- The Supreme Court let Homeland Security screen state voter rolls weeks before the midterms, then let New Hampshire reject student IDs as too close to an election. By Mitch · the evening edition, 1 November 2026
The receipts
The DOJ disbanded its crypto enforcement team in April 2025 and ordered inconsistent investigations closed - while the president's family runs a crypto business CNBC, 8 April 2025 (Blanche memo)
DOJ charges 18 noncitizens in North Carolina for illegal voting in 2024 electionThe Justice Department announced charges Thursday against 18 more noncitizens accused of illegally voting in North Carolina’s 2024 election, bringing the number charged statewide this year to 30 as federal officials warn against unlawful voting ahead of the midterm elections. The prosecutions add to a nationwide enforcement push that had…
· Trump administration threatens California officials if noncitizens vote in midterms from the morgue, 17 Oct 2026
· Trump administration threatens California officials if noncitizens vote in midterms from the morgue, 16 Oct 2026
· Texas sued after glitch delays almost 600,000 voter registrations from the morgue, 15 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.