Ninth Circuit questions Trump DOJ’s emergency request to set aside 20,000 California mail ballots
A Ninth Circuit panel questioned the Trump administration’s emergency bid to make California set aside about 20,000 mail-in ballots linked to people the Justice Department suspects are non-citizens. The judges probed whether the government’s legal arguments could overcome state authority over election rules and whether the appeals court can intervene before a district court has ruled.
The Justice Department says ballots should be held while the voters’ eligibility is reviewed, warning that hundreds of thousands could be counted each day as the dispute continues. California disputes the government’s data and says it has safeguards against non-citizen voting; Los Angeles County’s preliminary review found apparent discrepancies in part of the federal list. More than three million Californians had already voted, and a hearing in the district court was scheduled for Tuesday.
In short
- Appeals judges questioned the DOJ’s request over about 20,000 ballots.
- California disputes the federal data and cites election safeguards.
- More than three million people had already voted statewide.
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
The Justice Department’s strongest case is that ballots linked to suspected non-citizens should be temporarily held while eligibility is checked, since counting them before review could undermine confidence in the result and be difficult to remedy later. It argues that the scale and pace of counting make urgent court action necessary, and that federal courts should prevent potentially unlawful votes from affecting an election.
The case against
California’s strongest case is that the federal request rests on disputed data, including discrepancies found in the county’s preliminary review, and risks wrongly delaying eligible citizens’ ballots. Election administration is principally a state responsibility, and intervening before the district court has assessed the evidence could bypass the ordinary process and disrupt voting safeguards already in place.
Explained simply
California runs its own elections, including how voters register and how mail-in ballots are handled. Federal law bars non-citizens from voting in federal elections, although some local elections in the United States allow non-citizens to vote under local rules.
The Justice Department is the federal government’s main legal department, while California’s officials oversee the state’s elections. The dispute concerns a federal list of people suspected of being non-citizens and whether ballots linked to them can be held while their eligibility is checked.
The case raises questions about how federal courts can intervene in state election procedures and what evidence is needed to challenge a voter’s eligibility. Its outcome could affect how election officials balance checking eligibility with processing ballots under state rules.
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