Ninth Circuit Blocks DOJ Effort to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots

A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration's request to force California to segregate ballots from over 20,000 alleged noncitizens on Friday. The 2-1 ruling found that the United States did not demonstrate that such extraordinary relief was clearly required by law during an active election.

The majority opinion noted that the district court identified no feasible method to identify and separate the specific ballots without causing potentially catastrophic effects on the entire voting system. Judges Mark Bennet and Gabriel Sanchez wrote the majority decision, while Trump appointee Patrick Bumatay dissented.

Bumatay characterized the government's proposed remedy as modest and argued that federal and state authorities could work together. He wrote that the federal government was merely seeking to safeguard California's long-standing decision to bar noncitizens from voting and that the government should have been allowed to try.

This is the second time in a week the appeals court panel has denied the administration's request to intervene. The Justice Department filed its original suit earlier in the month, demanding that California election officials set aside the ballots in question. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Carter ruled that the request violated constitutional principles giving states control over their elections.

Judge Carter criticized the administration's methodology for generating the list of names, noting that the Department of Homeland Security claimed in July that approximately 200,000 noncitizens were registered to vote in California. He questioned the reliability of the process, pointing to similar claims in Nevada where the number of alleged noncitizen voters dropped from 15,903 to 185 after manual review, with all 185 later confirmed as citizens.

The appeals court also pushed back on the claim that the government needed emergency intervention, stating the situation was at least in part self-constructed because the administration waited until too close to the election to act. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether it planned to file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, which helped defend the case, said the Justice Department sought to discard the voices of more than 20,000 Californians without credible evidence. She stated that the decision confirms elections must be governed by facts and law rather than political interference or voter suppression.