USAupdated 1h ago2 min read
Federal Appeals Court Panel Hears Trump Administration Bid To Set Aside 20,000 California Mail Ballots
“The Trump administration is seeking an injunction that would block California from tabulating ballots from more than 20,000 people flagged by various federal agencies as ‘likely’ noncitizens”
“‘I don’t see how we have jurisdiction,’ said U.S.”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
DOJ seeks to set aside up to 20,000 California mail ballots believed noncitizen. 9th Circuit judges skeptical of immediate segregation order during rare emergency hearing.
Appeals court hears DOJ bid
A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court scheduled a rare Sunday hearing in the Justice Department's voting lawsuit against California over the Trump administration's effort to force election officials to set aside mail ballots tied to roughly 20,000 potential noncitizen voters. Judge Mark Bennett told a Justice Department attorney that California appears to have legal authority to handle its elections on its own, and he said the fact that Congress passed a criminal law prohibiting noncitizens from voting does not mean the Justice Department has authority to regulate California's voting process.
Matthew Donnelly argued that the Trump administration was supplied a list that was purchased from California and that the administration then used a “rigorous process” with third-party software to compare voter data against its own citizenship data. The hearing came as California officials said the list is unverified and includes the names of lawful voters, and the state said it had already processed more than 300,000 midterm ballots.
Judges question the list
Judge Gabriel Sanchez pressed DOJ attorney Matthew Donnelly on the reliability of the Trump administration's claims that there are 20,000 noncitizens on California's voter rolls, and Sanchez said, “Your claims very much depend on the reliability of that list.” Samuel Siegal argued that the Trump administration's list of alleged noncitizens voters was unreliable, saying it isn’t clear where the Trump administration’s list came from and that the data being used was “wildly outdated.”
The panel also questioned why the Justice Department took its case to the appellate court before the US District Court in California had held a hearing, and Bennett said, “I don’t see how we have jurisdiction.” The Trump administration sought an injunction to stop California from tabulating ballots from more than 20,000 people flagged as “likely” noncitizens until their citizenship status can be confirmed, while California and Los Angeles County argued the request would “short-circuit the democratic process” while the election was already underway.
Letters, deadlines, and stakes
The Justice Department sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Justice Department said may belong to noncitizens, and the letters set a 48-hour deadline to provide identifying information.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli wrote to San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters Joani Finwall that “Within 48 hours, we ask that you commit to working with DOJ and DHS to identify who on the accompanying list is a citizen and who is not,” and he warned of legal implications for continuing to send vote-by-mail ballots to those people.
California’s attorney general Rob Bonta rebuked the Trump administration’s efforts to quash alleged noncitizen voting, calling it “politicizing and weaponizing the law,” and he said the justice department acted at Donald Trump’s direction.
Sen. Alex Padilla said the Trump administration is “afraid and desperate” and attempting to interfere in the state’s elections, while the Justice Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels emphasized that the department is explicitly “not requesting a purge, cancellation of registrations, or any programmatic action.”