A federal appeals court has blocked an emergency push by the Justice Department to set aside mail ballots linked to more than 20,000 California voters whom the Trump administration claims are noncitizens. Friday’s 2–1 ruling leaves the state’s election procedures fully intact just days ahead of the midterms, with the majority pointing to significant doubts regarding the reliability of the federal voter list and the severe danger of voter disenfranchisement.
The decision marks a major legal defeat for federal prosecutors who have pressed unsubstantiated claims of widespread voting irregularities in California. In the majority opinion, the court pointed to a lower court’s determination that the government’s methodology for flagging suspected noncitizens lacked credibility, thereby undermining the core of the DOJ’s argument.
Granting the federal government’s request would trigger catastrophic disruptions and upend the administration of the vote, the majority wrote, quoting the district court’s assessment. The panel emphasized that intervening at this late stage carried a material risk of disenfranchising eligible voters and could jeopardize the entire election process in Los Angeles County.
Ninth U.S. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the panel’s decision, arguing that counting potentially illegal ballots would dilute the voting power of legitimate citizens. The federal government proposed a modest remedy by seeking to stop California from mixing the ballots of citizens and suspected noncitizens, Bumatay wrote, adding that the measure would not cancel any vote outright but merely allow time for eligibility verification.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment following the decision. The litigation stems from a lawsuit filed by the DOJ in mid-October after state officials refused to segregate ballots that federal authorities asserted had been mailed to noncitizens.
A federal district court initially denied the administration’s request for an injunction, ruling that the federal statute invoked by the DOJ did not supersede existing state election laws. Following that defeat, the administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit, culminating in Friday’s ruling. Federal authorities retain the option to appeal the decision further to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The legal battle unfolds against a backdrop of repeated, unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud made throughout the year, which voting rights advocates and election officials warn undermine public confidence in American elections. Reacting to the initial district court decision, former President Trump claimed on Thursday morning that he would have won California by a significant margin in past presidential runs if the vote count had been honest, though he provided no evidence to support the assertion.
