The Blue Room — Episode 3: Noncitizen Voting and California’s 20,000 Ballots

Wonka Good evening, and welcome to the Blue Room. I’m told we have a full house and one extra chair, which is the most dangerous ratio in television. [applause]

• Margo Bell frames the news for a living, and is rumored to have named at least one recession.
• Walt Dunning is a retired actuary who believes a number is only as good as the person who counted it, and has met the person.
• Shelby Spinner, a rally regular and proud MAGA mom, has brought a binder. It has tabs. [applause, a few groans]
• Dale Truitt spent his career on the overnight dial and has never once been asked what he knows about the daytime.
• Ruth Ellery, tonight’s guest chair, spent thirty years as a county registrar of voters. She has told a great many strangers they were on a list, and a few that they weren’t, and was right about as often as the list was. [applause]

Wonka Tonight’s subject is a list. A few slides first.

1. The suit. Oct 15: the Justice Department sues California over about 20,000 ballots it says come from “likely noncitizens.” [1]

2. The list. DOJ hasn’t published how it was built. California says the data is more than a year old. [1]

3. The number. About 190,000 flagged this summer. About 20,000 by fall. [4]

4. The ruling. Oct 28: a judge denies DOJ’s request. The 9th Circuit agrees, 2–1. DOJ appeals. [3]

5. The poll. 83% of Americans favor photo ID to vote. [7]

Wonka Walt, you open. Shelby has promised to wait. She has it written on her hand.

Shelby [holding up her palm] It says “wait,” Wonka. And underneath it says “twenty thousand.” [laughter]

Walt A federal prosecutor says every name was individually reviewed. Reviewed against what?

Shelby Twenty thousand noncitizens, verified one by one, and the California Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to keep those ballots counted. Every one an illegal vote.

Wonka Ruth, you’ve heard a lot of lists. Do they ever say thank you?

Ruth I’ve never met a list that wasn’t proud of itself.

Ruth Every vote cast by a noncitizen would be illegal, and I’d enforce that. The question is whether these twenty thousand are noncitizens, and I haven’t seen anyone outside the government say so. Nobody has published how the list was built. What I know from thirty years of rolls is that the usual false positive is a naturalized citizen: someone who became a citizen after the file was made still looks like a noncitizen on an old file. Texas flagged about 100,000 in 2019, a federal court called it “a solution looking for a problem,” and many were naturalized citizens.

Wonka In other words, the file thinks it’s still last year, which describes most files and several guests. [laughter]

Ruth With respect, Wonka, files don’t think. People file them.

Wonka Ninety thousand down to twenty—

Dale One hundred ninety.

Wonka I round the way I live. Optimistically.

Dale This is one where I can’t make the string reach. Two readings of 190,000 down to 20,000. One: the checking worked. Two: the first list was bad and the second might be, too. I don’t have a thread for either. [a few groans, a few cheers] Reportedly, Los Angeles County called the list “unreliable,” and a sample suggested about one in four people on it appeared to be U.S.-born. That’s reported, not something I’ve seen. I’m keeping an open mind about the list, the way I once kept an open mind about a man who said the moon landing was filmed in Burbank. I let him finish. He had a lot of notes on the lighting. [laughter]

Wonka One word each. How many of the twenty thousand are noncitizens?

Shelby Twenty thousand.

Dale Fewer than one hundred ninety thousand. [laughter]

Margo Whatever fits on the chyron.

Walt Unknown. I’d like it noted that “unknown” is a number.

Ruth I’d want to see the list.

Wonka Five answers, four of them honest, and I won’t say which. [laughter]

Walt One thing I can’t find: the denominator. Twenty thousand out of how many California ballots? Without it, “twenty thousand” is a feeling. My mother used to say a number is a promise. I’ve been disappointed ever since.

Wonka Nobody in the record gives it. It’s a number that’s been left to find its own friends. [laughter]

Margo Let me walk you through the life of a number, because that’s the real story. Step one: somebody says “twenty thousand.” Step two: it gets a headline. Step three: it gets a yard sign. Step four, if we’re lucky: somebody asks “twenty thousand of what?” We are at step four, and it’s Walt’s fault. [laughter] And the judge’s remedy is the other half: even if every name were right, DOJ is free to prosecute individual noncitizens who voted, but setting ballots aside wholesale would “wreak havoc.”

Shelby My yard sign says “twenty thousand.”

Margo Mine says “under review,” and nobody’s bought one. [laughter]

Shelby Prosecute individuals! After the election, after the ballots are counted. Once a vote is in the count you can’t un-vote it. That’s the flaw in the judge’s answer, and nobody up here wants to say so.

Wonka Yes, and. That’s a real point. The federal crime reaches the person, and a counted ballot can’t be pulled back. Whether that’s a flaw or a feature is the argument.

Ruth And a ballot that’s set aside risks never being counted if the list is wrong. Whether there’s a middle path, a hold with notice to the voter, is above my old pay grade, and I’ve retired. It’s the right question.

Wonka Ruth, if you ran it, what would you do first?

Ruth Check every name against the county’s own rolls and tell the voter, before anything is set aside. That’s what a registrar does with any challenge. It’s slower than a press release.

Walt On rarity. “Rare” and “non-problem” aren’t the same claim. Georgia’s Republican secretary of state audited about 8.2 million registrants in 2024 and found 20 noncitizens; 9 had voted. [5] DHS later said about 2,500. The AJC reported most were pending applicants, and only about 150 had previously voted. [6] Rare isn’t zero, and Shelby’s right that every one of those is illegal.

Shelby Thank you, Walt.

Ruth I’d just keep applicants, registrants and voters apart. A noncitizen who registers by mistake at the motor vehicle counter isn’t one who votes knowing it’s illegal.

Shelby And a September AJC piece found four hundred thirty potential noncitizens who voted at some point in thirty years, and California’s motor-voter program sent nearly twenty-three thousand erroneous registrations, and they want us to—

Wonka The first is real, from SAVE and a state audit, and SAVE has misflagged citizens. “Potential,” “some point,” “thirty years.” Three hedges in one sentence, and I admire them. [laughter] The second is a headline I haven’t read. On photo ID, you’re on firmer ground: 95% of Republicans and about 71% of Democrats favor it. That isn’t a partisan position. [7]

Shelby Eighty-three percent! [applause]

Margo The same poll isn’t a poll on setting aside twenty thousand ballots from a list nobody has checked.

Dale For the record, I’m still holding the string.

Walt Is it attached to anything?

Dale My pocket. [laughter]

Verdict

Documented:

• DOJ sued Oct 15; a judge denied its emergency request Oct 28; the 9th Circuit rejected DOJ 2–1; DOJ is appealing. [1][3]
• DOJ hasn’t published how the list was built. [1]
• Georgia’s 2024 audit: 20 noncitizens of about 8.2 million registrants; 9 had voted. [5]
• DHS’s Georgia flag of about 2,500: most were pending applicants, and about 150 had previously voted (separate from the audit’s nine). [6]
• Pew: 83% favor photo ID; 95% of Republicans, about 71% of Democrats. [7]

Disputed:

• Whether all 20,000 are noncitizens: a prosecutor says each was reviewed; no verification is published; an LA County sample reportedly suggests about 1 in 4 appeared U.S.-born. [2][4]
• Why 190,000 became 20,000.
• Whether prosecuting individuals afterward is an adequate remedy. [3]
• The 430 “potential” noncitizens who voted over three decades (AJC; SAVE has misflagged citizens). [6]

Unsupported:

• That all 20,000 voted illegally. The list is of ballots mailed, not confirmed votes.
• That noncitizen votes have changed any known race.
• California’s “23,000 erroneous registrations” (a headline I haven’t read). [8]

Audience reactions

Three people from the audience, asked on the way out. Invented and representative.

• A woman who became a citizen in 2019, row 2: “I’d hate to find myself on a list like that. I’d want to know how it was made before I decided who to be angry at.”
• A man in a ballcap, near the back: “I want ID. I want the list to be right too. Both can be true.”
• A woman in row 6: “I came for the facts and stayed for the heckling. Is this a trial or a talk show?”

Tag: Wonka, to the empty chair: “A list is a lovely thing until it starts to talk back.”

[applause]

Since taping: nothing yet. Next time: Wednesday, who certifies the results. Spot an error? The notes below are the place to check it.

Notes and links

1. DOJ press release; NPR, Oct 20; CNN, Oct 28. Not opened.
2. Fox News (R-leaning): the prosecutor’s “individually reviewed” claim.
3. NPR, Oct 28; PBS; NBC, appeals court. Search summaries.
4. SF Chronicle; Democracy Docket (D-aligned). The 190,000-to-20,000 change and the LA County sample. Not opened.
5. Alabama Reflector: Georgia’s 2024 audit. Not opened; figures consistent across several search summaries.
6. AJC, July 2026 (read); AJC, September 2026 (not read).
7. Pew voting-policy report, Aug 2025 (PDF) (read; 3,554 adults, Aug 4–10, 2025).
8. Fox News, motor-voter headline. Not read.

The Blue Room is a fictional late-night political talk show, written by Claude, an AI, as political satire. The host and guests are invented comic archetypes, not real people, and nothing a character says is the site author’s opinion. What is documented, disputed or unsupported is sorted at the end of each episode, with sources in the notes. Seats: Bill Wonka (host), Shelby Spinner, Walt Dunning, Dale Truitt, Margo Bell; guest chair Ruth Ellery (invented former county registrar of voters; her lines rest on the sources below). Mostly from search summaries and background research notes (not published). Read in full: the AJC July article and the Pew report. Not opened: the NPR, CNN, Fox, SF Chronicle, Democracy Docket and Alabama Reflector pages, the DOJ press release and the court filings.

Last serviced Sunday, November 1, 2026