Washington- A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to require California election officials to segregate ballots received from about 20,000 people they say are not U.S. citizens.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge David Carter is the latest setback for the Trump administration in its efforts to exert more federal control over election administration just before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, when voters will decide which party controls the House and Senate.
Carter said the Justice Department’s request for California to segregate and exclude more than 20,000 ballots violates “long-standing constitutional principles” giving states the authority to administer their own elections.
“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to force a state and local government to abandon its own constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch,” the judge wrote in a 26-page ruling. “By filing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as sole sovereign. But California and its people are also sovereign.”
If it granted the Trump administration the relief it seeks, either political party could “create chaos for its own political purpose to disrupt the electoral process,” Carter wrote.
“More than 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought for,” he said.
Carter echoed concerns raised by attorneys in California and Los Angeles County about the accuracy of the list of people the Justice Department says are not U.S. citizens, writing that its citizenship verification protocol “raises significant concerns.”
The judge called the methodology used by the Trump administration to create the list “vague” and said he “cannot conclude that the plaintiffs’ procedure is credible.”
Carter also warned that requiring California election officials to set aside ballots received from these purported non-citizens would likely lead to disenfranchisement.
“Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest prioritizes their protection,” he said. “Individuals who have met the requirements of California’s voter registration laws should not be deprived of a fundamental right simply because of unfounded allegations arising from a process fraught with uncertainty and error.”
The Justice Department plans to appeal Carter’s decision, according to a notice published Wednesday evening on the court docket.
At a hearing the day before, Carter was skeptical of the government’s arguments that thousands of ballots should be set aside and not counted while election officials verify that they were cast by U.S. citizens.
“I think we’ve always encouraged people’s right to vote, we the people, because when we exercise our right to vote, we exercise equality,” Carter said.
The judge asked the Justice Department why, rather than risk disenfranchising legitimate voters, prosecutors cannot pursue post-election indictments of those they believe voted illegally. He noted that the Justice Department can rely on returned ballot envelopes, which contain identifying information, to show that a noncitizen voted in violation of federal and state laws.
“The remedy as a good prosecutor is to make sure these people are prosecuted,” he told Justice Department lawyers.
Carter said the Justice Department’s request to separate ballots from people the government considers noncitizens until their citizenship can be verified would constitute a “monumental change” in election procedures during voting.
The decision by Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, came after the Justice Department went to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday and asked that court to require California election workers to separate ballots from voters on a government list of 20,000 people it claims are noncitizens.
But the appeals court ruled Monday 2-1 for reject the callconcluding that the Trump administration failed to give the district judge “an adequate opportunity” to consider whether to grant temporary relief.
The Ministry of Justice filed his lawsuit against California, its Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan earlier this month after sent them letters claiming that approximately 20,000 suspected non-citizens were registered to vote and received mail-in ballots. There are more than 23 million registered voters in California.
The government has given election officials 48 hours to review the list of people it deems ineligible to vote and asked California to ensure that ballots received from them are not tabulated until their citizenship has been confirmed.
Shortly after California officials raised concerns about the accuracy of the list and the Justice Department’s request, the government filed a lawsuit and asked the court to issue a temporary order requiring state election officials to sequester ballots from suspected non-citizen voters.
The Justice Department argued that California’s refusal to separate ballots risked diluting Americans’ votes. Additionally, because California potentially mixes legal ballots with those cast by purported noncitizens, the state is thwarting Congress’s efforts to protect election integrity, Bill Essayli, Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor, said at a hearing.
Federal and California laws prohibit noncitizens from voting.
“There is an interest in the American public having confidence in their elections,” Essayli said.
He stressed that the Trump administration is not calling for the cancellation of any election.
But California officials denounced the Justice Department’s lawsuit as a “reckless political stunt” intended to cast doubt on the election results.
Anne Bellows, California’s deputy attorney general, told the court during the hearing that the relief sought by the Trump administration — an order barring California from tabulating the ballots of voters it identified as “likely” noncitizens — would be “incredibly disruptive” to election officials and a “recipe for disenfranchisement.”
The state’s lawyers also said the Trump administration was not transparent about how and when it received California’s publicly available voter registration list, raising concerns that the government used outdated information to compile its list of the 20,000 presumed non-citizens registered to vote in the state. The Trump administration said it is “enhancing” voter data using a third-party service.
Los Angeles County lawyers, meanwhile, warned that it would be “impossible” for election workers to separate ballots returned by suspected non-citizens by the end of the election period because they would have to manually review ballot envelopes to identify those received from voters on the Trump administration’s list.
And in court filings, Los Angeles County argued that the Justice Department’s data was “unreliable.” Of the 20,000 records on the government list, only a little more than 7,000 had addresses in Los Angeles County, according to attorneys.
Additionally, a review of a sample of 200 records from the list found that more than half were canceled or inactive voter registrations, so no ballots were mailed. Of the sample of 200 voters who reported their place of birth, just over 38% indicated they were born in the United States, Los Angeles County officials said.
But a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official said in a declaration filed in district court that the agency conducted its own study of the immigration records of the 200 people in the county’s sample and determined that none were born in the United States.
The official, Nicolas Bartell, separately acknowledged that as part of an “ongoing” analysis of voter data, USCIS identified about 189 records “with minor data discrepancies” that appeared on the list of 20,000 registered voters sent to California.
Voting in California began in early October, when mail-in ballots were sent to registered voters. In Los Angeles County, more than 550,000 ballots have already been processed, said attorneys for Logan, the county registrar and clerk. More than 3.5 million mail-in ballots have been returned statewide.
President Trump has claimed for months that Democratic-led states have voters on their rolls who are not U.S. citizens, although instances of non-citizen voting are rare. The president’s assertions are part of a broader effort by his administration to assert more control over federal elections.
Beyond efforts in California, federal prosecutors in Washington state » asked election officials there to void ballots received from more than 400 people who they say are not U.S. citizens and warned that legal action could follow. The Trump administration also filed a complaint against Alaska election officials seeking to block certification of the Senate results if the incumbent, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, loses.
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