This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Saying the Trump administration had embarked on “a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference,” a federal judge on Wednesday refused to order California election officials to set aside 20,000 ballots over claims those voters might not be citizens.
“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” wrote U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.
“This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections,” the judge wrote, saying if he granted the Trump administration’s last-minute request “either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve.”
The ruling is the latest legal defeat for the Trump administration as it has sought to find evidence that would validate President Donald Trump’s longstanding claims that Democrats win because of rigged elections.
Carter said he declined to be a party to a process that could disenfranchise voters.
“Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable,” he wrote. “Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred. If the executive (branch) can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger.”
Carter also slammed the federal government for not providing a clear accounting of its methodology in creating the list of 20,000 possible noncitizens, saying prosecutors provided vague explanations “and raised multiple questions regarding reliability.”
Federal officials insist their list is mostly accurate and came from investigators correlating public voter files, government data and commercial databases, but prosecutors have acknowledged that some of the people on the list are likely citizens.
State and county officials and civil rights groups have said that the list appears to be riddled with inaccuracies and it often omits key data such as Social Security and driver’s license numbers that would allow county officials to confirm who the people are.
In a briefing with reporters Wednesday before Carter’s ruling, California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta said the federal government’s case was little more than an “amateur hour” political stunt to validate Trump’s conspiracy theory that elections are rigged for Democrats.
“It’s a joke. It’s embarrassing, but it is dangerous,” Bonta said. “They are trying to attack the fundamental right to vote with trash data.”
In a Fox News interview on Wednesday before the ruling, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said the administration would appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We’re moving at a lightning pace because the way California does elections, everyone already has a ballot,” Essayli said. “Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been returned, and the counties already started processing those ballots. … That’s why we need an order now to separate and segregate these ballots — not to cancel any vote — just to sequester them so we can figure this out.”
Higher court declined to intervene
A 9th Circuit panel already rejected one attempt by Essayli’s office to get an emergency order. A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 Monday to reject an urgent appeal to bypass Carter’s courtroom. The federal government claimed the district judge didn’t schedule a hearing fast enough.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, a group of civil rights organizations, including California’s chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union, sued the Trump administration and urged a federal court to block the administration’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative.”
The groups claim the initiative has been targeting and intimidating naturalized U.S. citizens, green card holders who have gone through the citizenship process. The initiative directed immigration officials to generate target lists of possible noncitizen voters and to coordinate with ICE field offices to interrogate individuals it identified.
The civil rights groups contend the federal government is using illegal tactics and faulty data to harass innocent legal voters.
“These allegations are putting eligible voters — including naturalized U.S. citizens — at risk of disenfranchisement,” Theresa Lee, an attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. “The administration can’t keep creating political stunts to sow distrust in our elections and lay the groundwork to question results they don’t like.”
Carter noted in Wednesday’s ruling that those most at risk of being disenfranchised are naturalized citizens.
“Individuals that the federal government recently identified as noncitizens on voter rolls in different states have repeatedly turned out to be naturalized citizens,” Carter wrote.
The ACLU’s and other groups’ suit came a week after a federal judge in California issued an order blocking the Department of Homeland Security from doing in-person interrogations of people investigators suspect may be noncitizens.
The judge in that case, Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, ruled that the federal government was relying on “faulty data sources that sweep in U.S. citizens” and was likely violating the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voter intimidation.
Martínez-Olguín’s order is in effect through Election Day.
