Washington — A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to require California election officials to separate mail-in ballots received from about 20,000 non-U.S. citizens.
U.S. District Judge David Carter’s decision is the latest setback for the Trump administration’s efforts to impose more federal control over election administration ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when voters will decide which party controls the House and Senate.
Carter said the Justice Department’s request for California to segregate and exclude more than 20,000 ballots violated “longstanding constitutional principles” that give states the power to regulate their own elections.
“Never in the history of the United States has the federal government attempted on the eve of an election to force state and local governments to abandon their constitutional election procedures and yield to the will of the executive branch,” the judge wrote in a 26-page ruling. “In filing this lawsuit, the executive branch would have convinced the court that it is the only sovereign state. But California and its people are sovereign, too.”
Carter wrote that if he granted the Trump administration the relief it sought, any political party could “create chaos and disrupt the electoral process for its own political purposes.”
“More than 20,000 registered Californians could lose rights that generations of Americans have worked hard to preserve,” he said.
Carter echoed concerns from attorneys for California and Los Angeles County about the accuracy of what the Justice Department says is a list of non-U.S. citizens, writing that its protocol for verifying citizenship “raises significant concerns.”
The judge called the Trump administration’s approach to creating the list “vague” and said he was “unable to conclude that the plaintiffs’ proceedings were credible.”
Carter also warned that requiring California election officials to set aside mail-in ballots received from those so-called non-citizens could lead to disenfranchisement.
“Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest favors protecting them,” he said. “Individuals who meet the requirements of California’s voter registration laws must not be denied their core rights simply because a process fraught with uncertainty and error creates baseless accusations.”
The Justice Department plans to appeal Carter’s decision and will seek an emergency order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
“Election officials are processing more ballots every day. This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution,” Bill Essaly, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
At a hearing a day earlier, Carter appeared skeptical of the administration’s argument that thousands of ballots should be withheld from counting while election workers verify they were cast by U.S. citizens.
“I think the right of our people to vote has always been encouraged because when we exercise our right to vote, we achieve equality,” Carter said.
The judge pressed the Justice Department to explain why prosecutors could not risk disenfranchising legal voters by prosecuting people they believe voted illegally if they were elected. He noted that the Justice Department could rely on returned ballot envelopes, which contain identifying information, to show that noncitizens voted in violation of federal and state law.
“The remedy for being a good prosecutor is to make sure these people are prosecuted,” he told Justice Department lawyers.
Carter said the Justice Department’s requirement to keep ballots separate from people the government considers noncitizens until their citizenship status is verified would be a “dramatic change” to electoral procedures at the polls.
The decision by Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, comes after the Justice Department on Friday asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to require California election workers to separate ballots from voters on a government list that claims 20,000 noncitizens.
But the Court of Appeal ruled 2-1 on Monday appeal dismissedfound that the Trump administration failed to give district judges “an adequate opportunity” to consider whether to grant interim relief.
Ministry of Justice File a lawsuit Earlier this month, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Recorder and County Clerk Dean Logan write to them It is claimed that approximately 20,000 suspected non-citizens registered to vote and received mail-in ballots. California has more than 23 million registered voters.
The administration gave election officials 48 hours to review the list of people it deemed ineligible to vote and asked California to ensure incoming ballots are not tabulated before confirming their citizenship.
The government filed the lawsuit and asked the court to issue a temporary order requiring state election workers to seize ballots from suspected noncitizen voters shortly after California officials raised concerns about the accuracy of the list and the Justice Department’s request.
The Justice Department argued that California’s refusal to segregate ballots could dilute Americans’ votes. In addition, Bill Essaly, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said at the hearing that the state is hindering Congressional efforts to protect the integrity of the election because of the possibility that California will mix legal votes with so-called non-citizen votes.
Federal and California law prohibit noncitizens from voting.
“It is in the interest of the American public to have trust and confidence in their elections,” Essaly said.
He stressed that the Trump administration was not asking for any votes to be invalidated or canceled.
But California officials denounced the Justice Department’s lawsuit as a “reckless political stunt” aimed at casting doubt on its election results.
California Deputy Attorney General Anne Bellows told the court at the hearing that the remedy sought by the Trump administration — an order barring California from counting the votes of voters it deems “likely” non-citizens — would be “incredibly damaging” to election officials and “a recipe for disenfranchisement.”
Lawyers for the state also said the Trump administration was not transparent about how or when it received California’s public voter registration lists, raising concerns that the government used outdated information to list the 20,000 so-called noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The Trump administration said it used third-party services to “enhance” voter data.
Meanwhile, attorneys for Los Angeles County warned that it would be “impossible” for election workers there to separate ballots returned by so-called non-citizens before the end of the election period because they must manually inspect ballot envelopes to identify ballots received from voters on the Trump administration’s list.
In court documents, Los Angeles County argued that the Justice Department data was “unreliable.” Of the 20,000 records on the government list, just over 7,000 have addresses in Los Angeles County, attorneys said.
Additionally, a review of a sample of 200 records in the inventory found that more than half corresponded to canceled or inactive voter registrations and therefore no mail-in ballots. Los Angeles County officials said that of a sample of 200 voters who reported their place of birth, just over 38% said they were born in the United States.
But a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official said in a statement filed in district court that the agency conducted its own review of the immigration records of 200 people in the county’s sample and determined that none were born in the United States.
The official, Nicolas Bartell, separately acknowledged that as part of an “ongoing” voter data analysis, USCIS found “minor data discrepancies” in about 189 records on a list of 20,000 registered voters sent to California.
Voting in California has been going on since early October, when mail-in ballots were sent to registered voters. Lawyers for Logan, the registrar and county clerk, said that in Los Angeles County, more than 550,000 ballots have been processed. More than 3.5 million mail-in ballots have been returned across the state.
President Trump has claimed for months that Democratic-led states have non-citizens on their voter rolls, although it is rare for non-citizens to vote. The president’s assertion is part of a broader effort by his administration to tighten control of federal elections.
In addition to California’s efforts, federal prosecutors in Washington state Ask an election official More than 400 ballots belonging to people they claimed were not U.S. citizens were being held there, with warnings of possible legal action. The Trump administration also File a lawsuit Alaska election officials will try to block certification of its Senate results if incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses.