Federal Judge Eyes Special Master to Weigh California Ballot Dispute

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter questioned the Trump administration's push to set aside 20,000 California ballots, warning that the move could strip voting rights from legal citizens during the midterm election. The federal government demands that state election officials hold those votes while they verify whether the voters are citizens.

Carter, a Clinton appointee, told the courtroom on Tuesday that he was concerned about disenfranchisement. "Some of these may be very valid voters, and that's my concern about disenfranchisement," Carter said. He indicated he would likely appoint a special master to review the evidence presented by both sides in a hearing scheduled two weeks from now.

Because of this procedural step, Carter's final ruling might not be issued until after the election. The judge stated he did not want to "just wing it with a ruling" based on evidence the federal government submitted the night before the hearing. He also suggested his order would halt federal threats of criminal charges against election officials who failed to comply.

The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed earlier this month. The Trump administration sued California after state officials refused to meet a 48-hour deadline to set aside the ballots of up to 20,000 people flagged as potential noncitizens. The administration sent letters to officials on Friday, threatening criminal charges if they allowed the suspected noncitizens to vote.

Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, argued that the risk of illegal votes was too high to ignore. "I would ask the state how many illegal votes is OK for them?" Essayli asked. He maintained that the state cannot have the right to count noncitizen votes and asserted that federal investigators re-reviewed a sample of 200 names and found only four were citizens.

California officials countered that the federal methodology was flawed and that the demand was an illegal meddlement in state-run elections. Anne Bellows, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice, stated that the stakes involve stripping voting rights from thousands of people until proven otherwise. Los Angeles County officials provided a filing showing that a sampling of 200 names found many were likely citizens who had not previously voted or received ballots.

Carter pointed to recent federal actions where prosecutors charged 28 California green card holders for allegedly voting in violation of noncitizen voting laws. He suggested that if the issue was as large as the administration claimed, prosecutors could simply indict the individuals without holding ballots. "If it's this big, you've got a remedy for goodness sakes," Carter told Essayli.

The hearing followed a decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected an emergency effort by the Trump administration to bypass Carter's courtroom. Two judges ruled that the prosecutors' claim of urgency was weak, noting that they had been making these claims since July. Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, expressed serious doubts about federal intervention in state elections, while dissenting Judge Patrick Bumatay argued that California was encouraging illegal voting by mixing ballots.