Federal Judge Rejects DOJ’s Request on California Ballots

A federal judge has decided against a request from the Justice Department to set aside mailed ballots submitted by over 20,000 individuals whom the department claims are noncitizens.

In a 26-page ruling released on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Carter stated that the federal government does not have the authority to dictate how California manages its vote counting. Referring to Ronald Reagan, Carter emphasized the significance of voting as a fundamental American right.

He argued that granting the request would disrupt an ongoing election, create confusion among those administering it, and invalidate ballots that citizens had legally cast.

The judge pointed out that Congress never granted the executive branch the powers the department was asserting. While the law defines it as a crime for noncitizens to vote, it does not mention that states must segregate ballots or halt counting. Furthermore, existing laws prevent systematic removals from voter rolls within 90 days of an election, and he deemed that temporary segregation would amount to the same infringement.

If authorities have evidence of illegal voting, he noted, the appropriate response should be to issue an indictment. Interestingly, on the same day the department sought the emergency order, it charged 28 individuals.

The Justice Department quickly appealed the decision, with a senior federal prosecutor in Los Angeles indicating that the solicitor general supported this action. The prosecutor claimed that as more ballots are processed, illegal votes could dilute legitimate ones. However, the judge rejected this argument, stating it lacked sufficient substance to grant the government the right to sue.

California sends ballots to all 23 million registered voters. By the time of the ruling, over 3.5 million ballots had already been returned, with Los Angeles County processing more than 550,000 of them, which are now unopened and untraceable.

In mid-October, the Justice Department had given officials 48 hours to verify the names on their list before filing a lawsuit when they did not comply. Prosecutors claimed they generated the list by cross-referencing California’s public voter database with immigration, passport, and Social Security records, suggesting that the 20,000 figure is merely a starting point.

Interestingly, Los Angeles County’s own review uncovered several issues; from a sample of 200 records, 42.9 percent were already canceled, and 4.6 percent were inactive. Moreover, 71.2 percent of the total list had never voted. The judge noted that the department did not disclose any error rates and had significantly reduced its own estimate from 190,832 names to around 20,000.

Prosecutors asserted that those 28 individuals had green cards and were part of the problematic list. So far, eleven of them have been arrested.

A recent ruling from the appeals court echoed the judge’s decision with a 2-1 vote, although Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, expressing that the federal government has its own vested interest in federal elections.