Court keeps 20,000 California ballots in count
The 9th Circuit ruled Friday that the Justice Department cannot force California to pause the tally of votes from alleged noncitizens ahead of the midterms.
By Talia Bennett ·
Voters in California will see their ballots counted in the upcoming midterms despite a federal effort to pause the process. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 ruling on Friday that denied the Justice Department's request to set aside disputed votes. This decision allows the state to proceed with tabulating results for millions of residents who have already cast ballots.
The Justice Department alleged that California mailed ballots to approximately 20,000 individuals who may not be U.S. citizens. Federal officials argued that these ballots should be segregated until citizenship is verified. California officials countered that the list is unreliable and likely contains many verified citizens. They warned that pausing the count would create administrative chaos.
The appeals court agreed with a lower court judge who previously rejected the federal request. The panel stated there is no feasible method to identify and separate specific ballots without causing catastrophic effects on the entire election system. Judge Mark J. Bennett, appointed by President Donald Trump, and Judge Gabriel P. Sanchez, appointed by former President Joe Biden, wrote the majority opinion.
Elections officials noted that hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. These votes are anonymized, meaning they cannot be matched back to the voters who submitted them. This technical reality makes it difficult to remove specific ballots from the final tally after the fact.
The ruling arrives during a period of intense federal scrutiny of local elections. The Trump administration has issued subpoenas in Alaska related to a spoiler-candidate controversy. It also provided a similar list of alleged noncitizen voters to officials in Washington state. This ongoing legal battle is the latest in a series of disputes over election administration.
A federal judge in Washington ordered the administration to share the list of 20,000 names with lawyers for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and the UCLA Voting Rights Project. This marks the first time a nongovernment organization will examine the list's merits. They aim to assess how the data matching process impacts eligible voters.
The two groups sued the Homeland Security Department in early October. They sought to prevent the use of federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls. The lawsuit argued that previous data matches in other states mistakenly included thousands of citizens. It also noted that the methods could disproportionately target naturalized citizens.
A coalition of unions, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, joined the legal challenge on Friday. They are asking a federal judge to temporarily block the Justice Department. The unions want to stop the department from demanding that local officials halt ballot counting or threaten criminal prosecution for non-compliance.
Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, warned election officials of potential legal jeopardy. He stated that any official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen opens themselves to legal risk. The Justice Department has argued that counting noncitizen votes dilutes the voice of citizens.
The Associated Press obtained subpoenas issued to Los Angeles County election officials on Thursday. These documents request records related to letters sent by federal officials in July and October. The letters outlined the allegations about noncitizen voters. At least three L.A. County election officials have been asked to appear before a grand jury on Nov. 4, the day after the election.
