A California federal judge rejected a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) request to set aside ballots associated with people on its list of more than 20,000 names, leaving state election procedures in place.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied the emergency request for a temporary restraining order on Oct. 28. The DOJ asked California to keep ballots connected to names on the list separate while officials checked citizenship. The department’s complaint alleged that the people were registered voters who had been sent mail ballots, but did not establish how many had returned one. Reuters reported that the DOJ did not disclose that count.
The case follows an earlier Justice Department request to set aside ballots tied to registrants whose citizenship it could not confirm.
Carter found the DOJ had not established a legal basis for the emergency order and was unlikely to show that federal law overrode California’s election law. He said the government could pursue criminal cases against individuals when it had evidence, but had not explained how counting ballots would interfere with prosecutions. “Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,” Carter wrote.
The judge also questioned the support for the list. Federal officials had alleged in July that as many as 190,832 noncitizens were registered in California; Carter said the DOJ did not sufficiently explain why its later list contained more than 20,000 names. The order said the government had not provided enough detail about its record-matching methods, confidence thresholds or error rates.
NPR reported that a preliminary Los Angeles County review of a small sample found records showing a significant portion had reported being born in the United States. Nicolas Bartell, a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), disputed that review, NPR reported, saying his office found none were U.S.-born and that four people might have a claim to U.S. citizenship.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli argued that continued ballot processing diluted citizens’ votes. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state would keep contesting the lawsuit and seek its dismissal, NPR reported. NPR and Reuters reported that the DOJ appealed. The order does not determine whether anyone on the list was a noncitizen or voted unlawfully.
