California Ballots Ruling: Court Won't Block 20,000 Votes

A California ballots ruling from a federal appeals court just kept the Trump administration from freezing the votes of roughly twenty thousand Californians eight days before the midterms. According to the Associated Press, the Ninth Circuit declined on Monday to rule on whether state officials can keep counting ballots the Justice Department says belong to likely noncitizens. The panel split two to one, and the fight now heads straight back to a trial judge.

In plain terms, the appeals court said it was not the right place to decide this yet. That leaves California free to keep counting while the Justice Department gets one more shot on Tuesday in front of a federal district judge, with Election Day on November third fast approaching.

What the Justice Department wanted

The Trump administration sued California on October fifteenth, asking a court to stop the state from tabulating mail ballots from people on a federal list of voters it calls "likely noncitizens." As the Los Angeles Times reported, officials gave California's secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar forty-eight hours to set those ballots aside before suing. When a lower court declined to rule right away, the Justice Department went to the appeals court with an emergency request.

Federal lawyers argued that once a mail ballot leaves its envelope, there is no way to link it back to the voter. That is why they wanted the flagged ballots segregated before counting went further. California's attorneys say the demand is impossible to meet this close to the election.

A rare Sunday hearing and some sharp questions

The judges held an unusual Sunday hearing, and the questions were blunt. Judge Mark Bennett, appointed by President Trump, asked how the request fits with the Elections Clause of the Constitution, which gives states the power to run their own elections. "How can we do that?" he asked the Justice Department lawyer, noting that the relief sought would clash with California law.

Bennett also doubted the court had jurisdiction at all, since the administration appealed before the district judge had made any order. Judge Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, pressed the government on where its list came from and which third parties supplied the data. The LA Times reported that the Justice Department lawyer could not answer, which Sanchez said raised questions about how reliable the list is.

Judge Patrick Bumatay, another Trump appointee, showed more interest in the damage done when noncitizens do vote. That mix of views explains why the final ruling was not unanimous.

Why California officials say the list is shaky

Local election officials say the federal numbers do not hold up. According to PBS NewsHour, which ran the AP report, a preliminary look at two hundred names from the list found that more than forty percent had canceled registrations. More than seventy percent had no voting history, and nearly four in ten were born in the United States.

Napa County registrar John Tuteur told the AP the push is "simply meant to raise huge doubts about the integrity of this election." Contra Costa County's registrar compared the claim to a July assertion about Nevada, where an alleged fifteen hundred noncitizen voters turned out to be zero once the administration was asked to name them.

Noncitizen voting is illegal, and prosecutors have charged twenty-eight people from the list with election crimes. Still, the AP notes it is very rare, even by the administration's own investigations.

What happens next

The next round lands Tuesday, when a district judge weighs whether to issue a preliminary injunction. The AP reports the decision is the latest in a string of legal setbacks for the administration's attempts to take more control over state-run elections. Federal judges in dozens of states have already turned down Justice Department demands for voter rolls.

The timing matters for anyone who cast a ballot early. The LA Times reported that more than three million Californians have already voted, including more than five hundred thousand in Los Angeles County. If a judge ordered ballots pulled aside, the practical mess would be enormous, which is the argument state officials keep making.

For young voters, the takeaway is simple. Your mail ballot is still being counted, and the legal wrangling is happening around the process rather than inside it. If you have not voted yet, check your county registrar's site for drop box locations and deadlines. The politics section will track the Tuesday hearing and anything that changes the count.

This California ballots ruling does not settle whether the federal list is accurate, and it does not stop the administration from trying again in the lower court. What it does show is that, one week out, judges across the spectrum are asking hard questions about how far Washington can reach into a state's election. For now, California keeps counting.