A federal appeals court Monday denied the Trump administration’s effort to block California from counting more than 20,000 mail-in ballots after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) claimed the votes “likely” came from non-citizens.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to order the votes purged in a 2-1 ruling, saying the three-judge panel did not have jurisdiction despite the DOJ’s “claimed emergency” because the lower court overseeing the lawsuit had not yet issued a ruling.
The Trump administration had sued the state and LA County on Oct. 15 after they refused to comply with the DOJ’s request to set aside ballots returned by people on the federal list and verify their citizenship before their ballots were counted.
The case against California and Los Angeles County will go back to U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday. Carter previously said he would rule “promptly” following arguments in downtown Los Angeles. Carter had previously dismissed a U.S. Justice Department bid to force California to turn over its full voter registration list to the federal government.
“At least part of the delay here is attributable to the United States’s own delay in filing suit, in realizing that existing California state law governs the issuance and processing of ballots, in recognizing that California has millions of registered voters and processes ballots on a schedule aligned with that scale, and in communicating to the court its desired relief,” Judge Mark Bennett, who voted to reject the lawsuit, wrote.
In dissent, Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote that the federal government has “a sovereign interest in safeguarding federal elections and ensuring that the votes of noncitizens do not undermine our electoral results.”
In response to the ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the latest development is “a positive development and a welcome speed bump to Trump’s disgusting attacks on the Constitution and our country’s democracy.”
“Make no mistake: Trump’s assault on democracy won’t slow down,” Newsom said in a statement. “Each and every one of us can do something: participate in democracy, don’t become disillusioned. Vote early, go to a vote center, put your ballot in a drop box.”
Attorney General Rob Bonta also issued a statement, saying that Trump had overstepped his authority by ordering that the state purge its voter rolls.
“The U.S. Constitution gives states and Congress — not the President or the Executive Branch — the power to determine the time, place, and manner of elections,” Bonta said in a statement. “The court’s order serves as an important step in our efforts to protect Californians’ right to vote and our state’s authority to run fair and secure elections. All the evidence — counts, recounts, hand counts, audits — shows that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.”
According to the California Secretary of State’s office, federal officials claimed in July that California had 19,000 non-citizens on its voter rolls, but when the office asked for proof of the claims, “They refused and provided California with nothing.”
The Trump administration has long asserted that large numbers of non-citizens were casting ballots in California and elsewhere, although officials have never provided any proof or documentation of such sweeping fraud.
In its request for an immediate ruling on the temporary restraining order request, federal prosecutors wrote that time was of the essence. As the defendants “continue processing ballots that cannot later be segregated or verified for eligibility, the dilution of lawful votes accelerates in real time,” according to the motion.
“This is an emergency,” DOJ lawyers wrote. “Every minute of processing that occurs without segregating the ballots of suspected non-eligible voters causes untraceable disenfranchisement and dilution of the votes of United States citizens.”
