Officials from both Santa Clara and Sonoma counties told CBS News they each received a subpoena issued by a grand jury at the behest of federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of California.
The subpoenas are the latest effort by the Justice Department to pressure California to set aside some 20,000 ballots that it claims were mailed to potential noncitizens ahead of Tuesday's election.
While the Justice Department's civil lawsuit seeking ballot segregation was ultimately rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court shortly before the election, the DOJ has pursued parallel criminal investigations that have seemingly expanded in recent weeks to focus not just on individual noncitizens who may have voted in prior elections, but also on the actions of state and local officials themselves.
The deadline for Los Angeles to respond to those requests for records was set for Wednesday, Nov. 4, although that deadline has since been extended for a few weeks, according to a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.
The Santa Clara subpoena also made similar such requests, according to a person familiar with its contents.
"The Sonoma County Registrar of Voters is committed to conducting fair, transparent elections in full compliance with the law while preserving access for all eligible voters. We have consistently maintained that there is no legal basis for the federal government's requests for Sonoma County to segregate ballots," said Sonoma County's counsel Joshua Myers in a statement.
Tony LoPresti, counsel to Santa Clara County, took a similar position in response to the subpoena.
This is not the first time that Santa Clara County has received a grand jury subpoena in recent weeks related to the topic.
Both lawyers said they are still evaluating the Justice Department's demands for documents.
Senior leaders at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., ordered California's four U.S. attorneys to issue the flurry of recent subpoenas to county officials or else they could face termination, two sources briefed on the matter told CBS News.
Although a federal judge in the days before the election had ordered the Justice Department to cease issuing threats to state and local election officials, that court order was eventually lifted by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
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