Judge who rejected DOJ’s voter roll demand takes over California ballot case from Trump appointee

The Trump administration’s attempt to force California to block over 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters has been assigned to the same federal judge who earlier this year rejected the Department of Justice’s effort to obtain the state’s unredacted voter rolls.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter took over the case Wednesday from Judge John Holcomb, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Donald Trump in 2020. Holcomb had been assigned to the case Tuesday.

Carter was appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

The transfer could prove particularly significant because Carter has already confronted — and rebuffed — arguments resembling those at the center of DOJ’s latest lawsuit against California.

In January, Carter dismissed a separate DOJ lawsuit seeking California’s unredacted voter registration data, ruling that the department was trying to exceed the legal authority Congress had given it.

“The DOJ cannot go beyond the boundaries provided by Congress and use these legislative tools in a manner that wholly disregards the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution,” Carter wrote at that time. “It is Congress’ role to determine the purpose and use of legislation.”

That reasoning bears directly on one of California’s central arguments in the new case.

DOJ is seeking an emergency order requiring California election officials to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 people federal agencies have labeled “likely noncitizens” and prevent those ballots from being counted until the voters’ citizenship can be verified.

The government bases its claim principally on 18 U.S.C. § 611, a criminal statute prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections. California argues that Congress never authorized DOJ to transform that criminal prohibition into a civil tool for forcing states to change how they administer elections.

Carter confronted a similar statutory question in the earlier voter-roll case.

There, DOJ relied in part on Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which requires states to preserve various election records, to demand sensitive voter information from California. Carter concluded that the department was attempting to use the law for a purpose Congress had not authorized.

“It is not for the Executive, or even this Court to authorize the use of civil rights legislation as a tool to forsake the privacy rights of millions of Americans,” Carter wrote. “That power belongs solely to Congress.”

Carter also explicitly rejected the broader centralization of election authority in the executive branch.

“There cannot be unbridled consolidation of all elections power in the Executive without action from Congress and public debate,” he wrote, pointing to the Elections Clause, which allocates election administration primarily to the states, subject to Congress’ authority.

California has raised substantially similar concerns in opposing DOJ’s latest request, arguing that the federal government is attempting to impose a new ballot-handling procedure on the state without congressional authorization.

Carter’s previous ruling also suggests he may closely scrutinize the factual basis underlying DOJ’s new demands.

California and Los Angeles County have challenged the reliability of DOJ’s list of more than 20,000 supposed likely noncitizens, arguing that federal officials have provided insufficient individualized evidence supporting the inclusion of voters on it.

Los Angeles County’s own review of a sample of the records found canceled registrations, people who had never voted and a significant share of individuals whose voter records listed a U.S. birthplace.

Carter was also skeptical of DOJ’s stated rationale in the earlier litigation, writing that judges do not have to accept “pretextual, formalistic explanations untethered to the reality of what the government has said outside of the courtroom.”

That could take on new significance in a case in which administration officials have repeatedly discussed potential criminal consequences for California election officials.

Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter warned officials that people who knowingly tabulate ballots belonging to individuals federal agencies identified as noncitizens could be criminally prosecuted. Trump subsequently declared that California officials who resisted the administration’s demands “will all go to jail for a long period of time.”

The new case was originally assigned to Holcomb. On Wednesday, Carter consented to take it onto his calendar as a case related to the earlier voter-roll litigation. The transfer paperwork indicates the cases involve the same or closely related events, raise substantially related questions of law or fact and would otherwise require substantial duplication of judicial work if heard by separate judges.

DOJ must defend its latest attempt to assert federal authority over California elections before a judge who, just nine months ago, rejected another such effort in unusually sweeping terms.

“Now it seems the Executive Branch of the United States government wants to abridge the right of many Americans to cast their ballots,” Carter wrote at the outset of that January decision. “This is what this case is grounded in — the right to vote and the government’s obligation to protect that right.”