Federal Judge Blocks Trump Bid To Freeze 20,000 California Ballots

A federal judge in California rejected the Trump administration's bid to halt the counting of 20,000 mail-in ballots on Wednesday. The government argued the votes were cast by noncitizens, but the court found the demand threatened to disrupt an election already in progress.

U.S. District Judge David Carter wrote that the request ran against established constitutional principles. Those principles give states primary control over how they administer their own elections. Carter warned that granting such a late-stage relief would allow political actors to create chaos for their own purposes.

The judge expressed doubt about the accuracy of the federal government's figures. He noted that the Justice Department has been vague about how it built its lists of suspect voters. Carter pointed to a previous case in Nevada to illustrate this unreliability. In Nevada, officials initially flagged 15,903 registered voters as noncitizens. That number dropped to 6,218, and then to 185 after a manual review. State officials later confirmed all 185 were citizens.

Carter concluded that the court could not find the government's process credible. He stated that the court would not strip Californians of their fundamental right to vote based on unfounded allegations. The ruling stands in contrast to the administration's position that the state must act immediately to prevent illegal voting.

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit on October 15. It sought an order requiring California to set aside ballots from individuals the federal government identified as likely noncitizens. The department asked for these votes to be withheld from the count until citizenship was confirmed. The government claimed its list contained more than 20,000 names. California's attorneys countered that the figures are unreliable. They noted a July letter from the government estimated the number of suspect voters at 190,000.

During a hearing on Tuesday, state attorney Christina McCall questioned the basis of the suit. She asked where the evidence was and described the allegations as vague. Another state attorney, Anne Bellows, called the stakes enormous. She described the federal demand as a recipe for disenfranchisement. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli argued the government was not dictating actions but clarifying what the state cannot do. He said the state cannot ignore potential noncitizens and proceed to count the votes.

Carter suggested the government already has a standard legal remedy for illegal voting. He noted that prosecutors recently announced 28 indictments of people who allegedly voted illegally in California in recent years. He told the government to go out and indict if it believes the law was broken. Essayli criticized the ruling on Wednesday and stated that an appeal is underway. He argued that every day more ballots are processed, which he said dilutes the votes of American citizens.

The case has already faced a procedural hurdle at the Ninth Circuit. The department asked that court to expedite review after Carter did not rule by the requested deadline. A panel held an emergency hearing on Sunday. On Monday, the judges ruled 2-1 against the administration. The majority found it lacked jurisdiction because Carter had not yet issued a decision. They described the government's claimed emergency as partly self-constructed.

Circuit Judge Mark Bennett noted the government has questioned California's voter rolls since July 16. He added that state laws allowing ballot processing twenty-nine days before an election are not new. Circuit Judge Gabriel Sanchez wrote a concurring opinion. He said the request would force the court to dictate to a state legislature on a matter within the state's traditional domain. Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented. He wrote that federal law bars California from mixing ballots likely cast by noncitizens with legitimate ones.