A federal appeals court has instructed California to respond by noon on Saturday regarding an emergency request from the Trump administration concerning about 20,000 mail-in ballots sent to individuals the Justice Department suspects are noncitizens. This order was issued late Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, shortly after the DOJ submitted their emergency request seeking a ruling by Saturday.
The DOJ sought this urgent relief after U.S. District Judge David Carter did not rule by a deadline that the department had previously requested. The Justice Department wants California election officials to set aside the ballots of individuals on their list for further eligibility review instead of processing them with other votes.
In the filing, the DOJ stressed the necessity of their request, stating, “This is an emergency.” They claimed that every minute that processing continues without segregating the ballots for suspected ineligible voters leads to disenfranchisement and dilutes the votes of legitimate U.S. citizens.
Even with the Ninth Circuit’s order in place, a hearing with Judge Carter is still set for Tuesday. It is unclear if the appeals court will make a ruling before that hearing takes place.
Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, mentioned that there is evidence indicating that the 20,000 individuals received mail-in ballots in October. His office filed a lawsuit against California last week to prevent the counting of ballots returned by those individuals.
Essayli noted that they are not asking for any drastic measures from California, just that the ballots associated with suspected noncitizens be kept separate. He also remarked that they believe the minimum number of potentially ineligible voters stands at 20,000.
In a recent exchange on social media, Essayli clashed with California Governor Gavin Newsom over the issue of noncitizen voting in the state. While Essayli criticized California’s citizenship verification procedures as inadequate, Newsom defended the integrity of the state’s elections, asserting they were abiding by the law.
California election officials, however, have pushed back against the Justice Department’s demands, arguing that county election offices neither have the jurisdiction nor access to the necessary federal records to verify the citizenship status of voters. They also stated that separating ballots associated with individuals on the DOJ’s list would be unfeasible if those ballots have already been processed, as once a mail-in ballot’s signature is verified, it is separated from its identifying envelope and mixed in with others.
According to court records, officials in Los Angeles County have already processed 331,000 ballots. This situation arose after Essayli’s office filed their suit on October 15, just two weeks after California began mailing out ballots.
