Judge rejects DOJ demand that California set aside 20,000 ballots

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have forced California to set aside and not count ballots from 20,000 people the Department of Justice alleges may be noncitizens.

U.S. District Judge David Carter’s decision came one day after a high-profile hearing in Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote. “In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

Carter concluded that DOJ was unlikely to succeed on multiple fronts, finding that the government likely lacks standing and a cause of action, that the federal criminal prohibition on noncitizen voting does not give DOJ authority to override California’s ballot-processing rules and that the requested remedy would likely violate several federal voting laws. He also rejected DOJ’s claims of an emergency, writing that its eleventh-hour predicament was “solely due to its own neglect.”

DOJ immediately appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit, which already rejected one appeal as premature while casting doubts on the validity of the Trump administration’s case.

Carter’s order preserves the status quo with voting well underway in California, a universal vote-by-mail state home to a number of competitive congressional races this cycle. Election officials there have already processed hundreds of thousands of ballots.

It also deals a significant blow to the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to intervene in the midterm elections. Attorney General Todd Blanche recently threatened similar California-style lawsuits targeting live ballots in “a number of states.” The administration sent a similar demand to Washington that it withhold ballots from more than 400 people it accused of being noncitizens illegally registered to vote.

DOJ sued California and Los Angeles County on Oct. 15 after state officials rebuffed a 48-hour deadline to review a list of individuals the federal government called “likely noncitizens.”

The Trump administration tried to sidestep district court review altogether by filing an unusual appeal before Carter even held a hearing, but the request was dismissed as premature in a 2-1 decision from the Ninth Circuit on Monday.

Two judges in the appellate majority — including one appointed by President Donald Trump — then wrote separately that they would have rejected DOJ’s emergency request even if the court had jurisdiction to consider it. Those opinions are not binding on any future appeal of Carter’s ruling, but they previewed many of the same substantive problems Carter identified Wednesday.

Carter also condemned federal threats against California election workers. DOJ had warned county officials they could face federal scrutiny and potential criminal exposure for continuing to process ballots on the government’s list.

“These threats must stop,” Carter wrote.

In closing, Carter said DOJ remains free to prosecute individual noncitizens when it has evidence they voted illegally — but cannot substitute its preferred election procedures for those enacted by Congress and California.

“The Executive’s requested relief,” he wrote, “would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”

“This Court declines to be a party to such process.”