Appeals court rules against Trump — again — on California ballots 

A US appeals court ruled 2–1 on 30 October against the Trump administration’s emergency request to make California set aside postal ballots from roughly 20,000 registered voters whom federal officials identified as likely non-citizens. The Justice Department wanted officials to check those voters’ citizenship before counting their ballots in the 3 November midterm election. California disputed the reliability of the federal list. The Ninth Circuit had dismissed an earlier appeal because the district court had not yet ruled; this time, it considered the request after a district judge had denied it.

The majority said the government had not shown that the law and facts clearly justified such an order during an election already under way. It also upheld the district court’s finding that California could not safely identify and separate the ballots without risking serious disruption to vote processing and potentially excluding eligible voters. Dissenting Judge Patrick Bumatay argued that separating the ballots would allow citizenship checks while protecting lawful votes. The decision denied emergency relief; it did not establish whether any of the people on the federal list were ineligible to vote. The Supreme Court subsequently declined the administration’s emergency request to intervene.