Judge Carter Halts Federal Order to Hold 20,000 California Ballots

U.S. District Judge David Carter ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot force California to set aside mail ballots from approximately 20,000 registered voters. The decision stops the Justice Department from requiring state election officials to segregate these specific ballots while they verify the citizenship of the individuals on the government's list.

Carter, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, found that the federal request violated long-standing constitutional principles that give states primary authority over their own election procedures. In a 26-page decision, the judge wrote that the executive branch sought to coerce state and local governments to abandon their established methods on the eve of an election. He noted that more than 20,000 registered Californians could potentially lose the right to vote if the administration's relief were granted.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit earlier this month against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan. The government claimed that roughly 20,000 suspected noncitizens were registered to vote and had received mail ballots. It demanded that officials review the list within 48 hours and ensure those ballots were not tabulated until citizenship was confirmed. The state has more than 23 million registered voters.

During a hearing Tuesday, Carter questioned why prosecutors waited until the election was underway to act. He suggested that the government could instead pursue indictments after the election using identifying information from returned ballot envelopes. He told Justice Department lawyers, "The remedy as a good prosecutor is to make sure these people are prosecuted." Carter described the request to separate ballots during the voting period as a monumental change to election procedures.

The case follows a 2-1 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday. The appeals court found that the Trump administration failed to give the district judge an adequate opportunity to consider temporary relief. The government had initially asked the appeals court to require California to set apart the ballots in question.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, argued during the hearing that California's refusal to segregate the ballots risks diluting American votes. He stated that the administration is not asking to void or cancel any votes, but rather to ensure integrity. He said, "There's an interest in the American public having trust and confidence in their elections."

California officials criticized the lawsuit as a reckless political stunt. Anne Bellows, a deputy attorney general for California, told the court that the requested order would be incredibly disruptive and a recipe for disenfranchisement. Her team also raised concerns about the transparency of how the Justice Department obtained the voter registration data, suggesting the government may have used outdated information.

Los Angeles County lawyers warned that it would be impossible for election workers to segregate the specific ballots by the end of the election period. They would have to review ballot envelopes by hand to identify those from voters on the government's list. Of the 20,000 records on the federal list, only just over 7,000 had addresses in Los Angeles County. A review of a sample of 200 records by county officials found that more than half corresponded to canceled or inactive registrations.

A conflict exists regarding the accuracy of the data. Los Angeles County officials stated that just over 38% of the 200 sampled voters who reported a birthplace indicated they were born in the U.S. However, Nicolas Bartell, an official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, filed a declaration stating that his agency's review of immigration records for the same 200 people found none were born in the U.S. Bartell acknowledged that roughly 189 records on the list had minor data discrepancies.

Voting in California has been underway since early October. More than 3.5 million mail ballots have been returned statewide, and more than 550,000 have been processed in Los Angeles County. President Trump has long claimed that Democratic-led states include noncitizens on their voter rolls, a position that forms part of his administration's effort to assert greater federal control over elections. Federal prosecutors in Washington state are also seeking to set aside ballots from more than 400 alleged noncitizens.