Judge blocks DOJ order to hold 20,000 California ballots

A federal judge in California denied the Justice Department's request to force state election officials to segregate ballots from 20,000 voters. US District Judge David Carter issued the ruling on Wednesday evening, rejecting the agency's emergency motion to pause the counting process. The decision blocks a legal maneuver that sought to isolate specific mail-in ballots before the midterms were fully tallied.

The dispute began in October when the Justice Department delivered a USB drive to Los Angeles and Sacramento election offices. The drive contained a list of names the agency identified as non-citizens registered to vote in the state. Officials received only 48 hours to review the data. The department threatened to sue if the state did not sequester the corresponding ballots and verify citizenship. More than 23 million voters are registered in California, making the 20,000-person list a small fraction of the total electorate.

Carter criticized the federal government's approach in his written opinion. He noted that the executive branch had never before sought to coerce a state into abandoning its own constitutional election procedures on the eve of a vote. Carter argued that the lawsuit implied the federal government was the sole sovereign, a position he rejected. He affirmed that California and its people possess sovereign authority as well.

The Justice Department filed its initial lawsuit on 15 October. The agency refused to share detailed methodologies for creating the non-citizen list. Local officials in Los Angeles found preliminary signs that the data was inaccurate. The department also threatened to prosecute election officials who tabulated ballots from non-citizens, a move Sam Trepel, a former DOJ prosecutor, described as lacking legal basis in a recent blog post.

The administration expanded its strategy after the initial filing. It began sending similar lists to other counties. Officials reviewing those lists found the department had flagged voters not on the rolls and provided insufficient information to verify status. Carter attempted to manage the timeline by setting a hearing for 27 October. The Justice Department appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing the district judge was not moving quickly enough. A panel of appellate judges ruled 2-1 against the department earlier this week.

The current conflict follows a larger announcement in July by the Department of Homeland Security. DHS claimed it identified up to 190,000 non-citizens on California voter rolls. The agency did not provide detailed data to state officials until after ballots had already been mailed. Legal experts have expressed skepticism about the administration's efforts since that initial announcement.