A federal judge has rejected a request from the Trump administration to order California election officials to set aside approximately 20,000 ballots linked to individuals flagged as potentially not being U.S. citizens. U.S. District Judge David Carter, nominated by Bill Clinton, ruled Wednesday that the Justice Department’s attempt to coerce California into abandoning its election procedures was unconstitutional. The Justice Department initially delivered a list of names to Los Angeles and Sacramento election officials, claiming they were non-citizens registered to vote, and threatened to sue if the ballots were not segregated and verified.
Judge Carter found the Justice Department’s methodology for creating the list “vague” and lacking credibility, raising concerns about potential disenfranchisement of lawful voters. Los Angeles officials found preliminary indicators that the list contained inaccuracies, including voters not on the rolls and insufficient information to verify citizenship. The Justice Department had also sought to bypass Carter by appealing to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost that effort in a 2-1 ruling.
The dispute originated from a July announcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identifying up to 190,000 potentially non-citizen voters on California’s rolls. The Justice Department subsequently sued California on October 15th, seeking to force the state to sequester the ballots. Sam Trepel, a former prosecutor at the Justice Department, wrote this month that any attempt to prosecute election officials for tabulating ballots from non-citizens would be without legal basis. After filing the lawsuit, the administration expanded its efforts to other counties, but election officials found similar issues with those lists.
Legal experts have been skeptical of the Justice Department’s efforts since the outset, with Judge Carter stating the case concerned “the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election.” He further argued that the federal government’s attempt to dictate election procedures infringed upon California’s sovereignty. The administration's effort to exert more federal control over election administration comes just ahead of the November 3rd midterm elections.
Our reading is that the Justice Department’s attempt to compel California to segregate ballots was a demonstrably unsuccessful effort to exert federal control over state election procedures. The judge’s ruling, coupled with the prior rejection by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, suggests a strong legal opposition to this intervention. The finding that the list of potential non-citizens was “vague” and contained inaccuracies further undermines the administration’s justification for the request, indicating a lack of credible evidence.
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