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Appeals Court Rejects Trump DOJ's Bid to Block California Ballots

Updated 3:21 PM ET · 1:42 PM ETConfirmedShare on

Politics Desk

In Short: A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's attempt to stop counting 20,000 ballots in California.

A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration's latest attempt to stop counting 20,000 ballots in California, an effort that a panel of appeals court judges said could 'jeopardize' midterm elections and disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.

The Trump administration had sued California on October 15, demanding that state officials review and set aside ballots from a list of 20,000 people suspected of being noncitizens illegally registered to vote.

In a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Justice Department had appealed prematurely after giving a federal judge just 15 hours to act on its demand that California separate the disputed ballots and verify voters' citizenship before counting them.

The court's decision, which came after a federal judge earlier this week rejected the DOJ's bid to immediately block the state from counting the batch of ballots, cited concerns over the reliability of the federal government's data and the potential catastrophic effects on the entire system if specific ballots were segregated.

Circuit Judge Mark Bennett told Justice Department attorney Matthew Donnelly that the DOJ appeared to be asking the court to 'issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law that the California Legislature has adopted pursuant to the Elections Clause.'

The court also noted that more than 500,000 ballots had already been processed in the week before Election Day, making it virtually impossible for election officials and law enforcement to know which ballot belonged to which voter.

The appeals court judges wrote that the administration's request likely violates the National Voter Registration Act, which establishes the 90-day 'quiet period' rule.

The court's majority wrote, 'We decline the United States’s invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution’s plain text.'

The court expressed major concerns that the administration’s attempts to seize control of the state’s election process will risk 'disenfranchisement of eligible voters' and could put the 'entire tabulation process in jeopardy.'

Despite the legal losses piling up, the DOJ is expected to immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Trump administration is also suing Alaska in an attempt to block the certification of the state’s marquee U.S. Senate race, and has similarly tried to force Washington state to segregate ballots from hundreds of people it alleges are noncitizens.

What this adds

Background

What's confirmed

• “As the district court found—and we discern no clear error—there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system,” they said.
• “If California receives these suspect ballots, mixes them with legitimate ballots, and then processes them, the potentially illegal votes will be counted toward the election of our representatives — threatening to dilute the vote of eligible citizens,” he wrote.
• Despite the legal losses piling up, the DOJ is expected to immediately appeal to the U.S.
• The DOJ is similarly trying to force Washington state to segregate ballots from hundreds of people it alleges are noncitizens.
• A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s latest attempt to stop counting 20,000 ballots in California, an effort that a panel of appeals court judges said could “jeopardize” midterm elections and disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.
• The administration’s request likely violates the National Voter Registration Act, which establishes the 90-day “quiet period” rule, appeals court Judges Mark J.
• More than 500,000 ballots had already been processed in the week before Election Day, meaning their envelopes had been verified and the ballots removed — making it virtually impossible for election officials and law enforcement to know which ballot belonged to which voter.
• “At least part of the delay here is attributable to the United States’s own delay in filing suit, in realizing that existing California state law governs the issuance and processing of ballots, in recognizing that California has millions of registered voters and processes ballots on a schedule aligned with that scale, and in communicating to the court its desired relief,” Judge Mark Bennett, who voted to reject the lawsuit, wrote.

What's still developing

• California officials rebuffed the DOJ’s demand as illegal and questioned the reliability of the federal government’s data given its poor track record for proving its sweeping allegations of noncitizen voter fraud.
• Bumatay said DOJ had proposed “a modest remedy” to the prospect that noncitizens might vote illegally.
• After a district judge had scheduled an Oct. 27 hearing on the issue, the federal government appealed to the 9th Circuit Court, arguing that a faster decision was needed to prevent the further counting of votes.
• “Because Congress has not exercised the specific power granted to it under the Elections Clause to override California’s established laws for challenging ballots or removing ineligible voters, the State Legislature’s statutory scheme remains the only method to do so,” the appellate court said.

Sources

• Democracydocketlink
• Independentlink
• KTVUlink
• LAmaglink
• NBC Los Angeleslink
• New York Postlink
• Newslink
• Newsweeklink
• The-Independentlink
• Warpbeatlink
• Washingtonexaminerlink
• Warpbeatlink
• Justthenewslink
• Lawcommentarylink
• Fox17Onlinelink
• Nationofchangelink
• ABC7 — video link