Carter Rules Federal Move to Hold 20,000 California Ballots Would Cause Chaos

A federal judge in Los Angeles denied the Trump administration's request to pause the counting of ballots cast by up to 20,000 California voters.

The decision, issued on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, arrives as more than 3.7 million people have already voted in the state. Over 500,000 of those votes have already been tallied.

The Republican administration filed the lawsuit in mid-October, accusing state election officials of missing a 48-hour deadline to review a list of 20,000 individuals the government alleged were likely noncitizens. The Justice Department argued that the state must wait to count these ballots until the voters' immigration status is verified.

Carter wrote that the federal request would disrupt the election that is already underway and create a chilling effect on both election workers and voters. He stated that the move would discount the votes of United States citizens and require counties to develop new methods for sorting ballots. Carter argued this process would risk disenfranchising an untold number of voters, effectively violating the National Voting Rights Act, which prohibits changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who argued on behalf of the federal government on Tuesday, contended that the request was designed to preserve the status quo. He stated that segregating a ballot does not prevent it from being counted later and that the Justice Department was trying to safeguard the elections from illegal ballots.

Carter also rejected the argument that California was impeding the federal government's ability to enforce the law. He noted that prosecutors had already demonstrated this ability by arresting 28 noncitizens who had voted or registered to vote illegally. The judge concluded that if the Executive branch can discount votes due to unproven allegations, the democracy is in danger.

The ruling represents a legal setback for the President ahead of voting that will determine control of Congress for the rest of his term. The Justice Department made a similar request in Washington state this week for the state to sequester ballots from hundreds of suspected noncitizens. A separate lawsuit in Alaska filed last week seeks to delay the certification of the vote if the Republican incumbent running for U.S. Senate does not win.