Newsom asks California's federal judges to be ready to resist any move to seize ballots before the results are certified

No warrant has been filed. That is the first fact in this story, and Newsom's own letter states it. What the governor sent on Saturday was a warning, addressed to the chief district judges of California's four federal districts, that the Justice Department's persistence in advancing what he called a baseless theory of criminal liability gives him grave concerns that federal agents will seek search warrants to seize ballots and ballot materials before the results are certified.

The theory he means is the department's claim that noncitizens are registered and voting in numbers that matter. The administration has alleged that more than 20,000 noncitizens are registered to vote in California. California has answered that the department's assertions relied on suspect data and that complying with its demands would risk disenfranchising eligible voters. The United States Constitution assigns the administration of elections to the states, which is the ground Newsom is standing on.

The courts have been moving all week. On Friday an appeals court rejected the administration's bid in the records fight, a ruling that could set up a showdown at the Supreme Court, and a federal judge separately ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who refuse to comply with its election related demands. Newsom's letter cites the department's letters to officials, which were sent by Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter, social media threats of prosecution by a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, and grand jury subpoenas issued to Los Angeles County election staff.

Newsom argued that California's chain of custody, documentation and retention laws already preserve any evidence tied to ballots, so there is no legitimate law enforcement reason to seize the materials needed to count votes. He enclosed a resource from the UC Berkeley Edley Center on Law and Democracy, a set of questions for judges assessing a search warrant application for election materials, for use between now and the certification of California's results on December 11. Whether any judge is ever handed such an application is the question the letter cannot answer. It makes sure the question will not arrive unannounced.