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The Trump administration has gone to war with California with the midterms fast approaching, claiming that noncitizens have been allowed to vote.

In a lawsuit against California and Los Angeles County, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asked that 20,000 voters’ ballots not be counted unless their citizenship was confirmed. Gov. Gavin Newsom, predictably, dismissed the validity of the lawsuit, saying, “We will continue to carry out free and fair elections in the Golden State – and call out this authoritarian as he tries every play in the dictator’s playbook.” Newsom also mentioned that under federal law, the state could not purge its voter rolls, without actually responding to the lawsuit’s specific claim.

The Trump administration further warned that any California officials who process ballots from noncitizens were opening themselves up to prosecution. In a letter to the state, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote, “The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring a federal crime – and knowingly facilitating such conduct is equally unlawful.”

Newsom has disputed the Trump administration’s claims of widespread voter fraud, while in the meantime, Democrats in major California cities think that illegal aliens voting in elections is an excellent idea. The Los Angeles City Council weighed allowing noncitizens to vote in city and school board elections earlier this year, and will likely revisit the subject in the future. In San Francisco, noncitizens are allowed to vote in school board elections. In California Democrats’ ideal world, illegal aliens voting would be a part of the rich fabric of American democracy, and something to which only bigots would object.

Fortunately, California voters have the opportunity to pass Proposition 39 and enact voter ID in the upcoming midterm elections, though current polls show the measure trailing. Newsom has blasted the proposal with familiar talking points, saying that it “is a ploy by Trump’s billionaire allies to make it harder to vote and easier to throw out valid ballots.” California’s initiative process is the one method via which conservatives can sometimes succeed, by passing measures that would never get the time of day in the state legislature.

If California Democrats had their way, the country would undergo a mass amnesty, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be neutered, and noncitizen voting would be fully allowed. Newsom and his party can claim that the state’s elections are secure, but it’s clear that their true objection against the Trump administration is that they don’t think noncitizen voting is a big deal. It’s up to voters and principled politicians to push back and ensure that citizenship still means something.