Judge rejects Trump administration bid to set aside 20,000 California mail ballots
The Justice Department wanted ballots of suspected noncitizens pulled days before the midterms. A federal judge refused, and the administration swiftly appealed.
Archive image · Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
A U.S. federal judge has rejected a bid by the Trump administration to force California to set aside more than 20,000 mail ballots ahead of the Nov. 3 congressional elections. The Justice Department, which alleges the registrants are noncitizens, had sought a temporary restraining order. U.S. District Judge David Carter, appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, denied the request on Wednesday in a 26-page ruling. He wrote that it violated the constitutional principle that states control their own elections and warned it would wreak havoc on the midterms.
"Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state," Carter wrote. The Justice Department swiftly appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Reuters, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
California says its safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust and that the administration's list relies on suspect data. Democracy Docket reported that one in four voters on the list in Los Angeles County were born in the United States. Reuters noted there is scant evidence that noncitizen voting is widespread.