Washington- A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to force California to void the mail-in ballots of 20,000 suspected non-citizens in an effort to “disrupt an ongoing election and create confusion and uncertainty.”
The one-paragraph order from U.S. District Judge David Carter came in response to the Trump administration’s decision to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit it filed against California officials and Dean Logan, the registrar-recorder and clerk of Los Angeles County, just weeks before the midterm elections.
“This lawsuit sought to disrupt an ongoing election and create confusion and uncertainty for both voters and election workers,” Carter wrote. “The right to vote is sacred. So is trust in our democracy.”
The Department of Justice filed his lawsuit after alleging there were more than 20,000 people who she claimed were not U.S. citizens but were registered voters in California. She sought a court order requiring election workers to separate ballots returned by those she had identified as suspected non-citizens.
The suit was filed in mid-October, after voting began in California and after hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots had already been returned to election offices.
Carter, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, rejected the Trump administration’s efforts require election workers to set aside those ballots and not count them until voters’ citizenship can be verified. After fail to secure a similar relief from the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the Supreme Court ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, the Justice Department informed Carter on Saturday that he would be dismiss the case.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s refusal, the United States is evaluating how best to ensure that America’s votes are protected, including preventing vote dilution by non-citizens,” a Justice Department lawyer wrote in a filing.
The Trump administration said that by the next court hearing in the case, scheduled for Friday, “California will already have commingled the challenged ballots with the legal ballots. There will then be no way to separate the challenged ballots. As a result, the relief sought and necessary by the United States is no longer available, making voluntary dismissal necessary.”
In his brief order, Carter officially closed the case and canceled Friday’s hearing.
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