California election officials said on Friday that federal lists meant to identify noncitizens were sloppily compiled. Many names lacked key information or had wrong addresses. "It was basically a data dump," said Mike Sanchez. Officials got the data on short notice, making it difficult to use for verifying voter rolls.
State and local officials said that they received thousands of names lacking key identifying information, and that many of the names were paired with addresses over which they had no jurisdiction.
California election officials looking into Trump administration demands to verify the citizenship or block the votes of suspected noncitizens said on Friday that the government had sent them lists so sloppily compiled, and on such short notice, that it was difficult, if not impossible, to comply.
Officials said that they received thousands of names lacking critical identifying information like Social Security numbers, and that many of the names were paired with California addresses over which they had no jurisdiction.
"It was basically a data dump," said Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for Los Angeles County's registrar's office.
The method by which the federal government transmitted the list -- a thumb drive with a sticky note containing a password -- also initially threatened the security of voter rolls, and made elections officials reluctant to use it, Mr. Sanchez said.
The government later sent a spreadsheet that was an unsubstantiated jumble, he said.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, defended the government's demands, saying that the names had been "confirmed from a review of federal databases."