9th Circuit clears California to count 20,000 mail ballots
The 9th Circuit denied the Trump administration's bid to hold the votes ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
By Yasmin Nasser ·
California election officials will proceed with counting roughly 20,000 mailed ballots in the upcoming midterm elections after a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's effort to pause the process. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the decision on Monday, clearing a path for state workers to tabulate the votes before the November 3 vote.
The administration filed the lawsuit on October 15, seeking to sequester the ballots because it believed they were sent to voters who are likely non-citizens. The Department of Justice argued that stopping the count would prevent ineligible individuals from participating in the federal elections. However, the government has not publicly explained how it generated the list of voters or determined their citizenship status.
Judge Gabriel Sanchez, writing for the two-to-one majority, stated that the administration did not provide lower courts with sufficient time to review the case. Sanchez emphasized that election administration falls under the state's traditional authority. He warned that intervening would be inviting disorder and confusion for both voters and election officials. The dissenting judge disagreed with the timing of the intervention.
The case now returns to a lower court, where a hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. The Trump administration requested an expedited ruling from the appeals court due to the proximity of the election date. The midterm elections will determine which party controls Congress, where Republicans currently hold slim majorities in both chambers.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber's legal team called the lawsuit a reckless political stunt in an October 20 filing. They argued the litigation threatened to disenfranchise thousands of eligible Californians. California officials have expressed doubt about the administration's claims regarding the number of non-citizen ballots.
The Department of Justice has sued 30 states and Washington, DC, to gain access to voter rolls containing personal data. It has lost 26 of those cases, with courts agreeing that the lawsuits could interfere with state election processes. No state has lost a case yet in this series of legal challenges.
Immigration agents have been deployed to identify non-citizen voters, including by knocking on doors to ask residents about their citizenship. Last week, the administration charged 28 immigrants in California with illegal voting. Reporting indicated that some of the accused were confused by the charges and maintained they had never registered to vote. A Reuters investigation found only 129 federal charges for non-citizen voting since 1996.
