Appeals Court Denies DOJ Bid to Segregate California Ballots

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 decision on Friday, denying a request from the Justice Department to isolate specific ballots in California. The federal government had sought to have the state set aside approximately 20,000 ballots sent to individuals who the administration claimed might not be U.S. citizens, demanding they remain uncounted until citizenship status could be confirmed. California officials have strongly contested the validity of this list, arguing it is unreliable and likely includes many eligible voters.

This ruling represents a significant hurdle for the Trump administration, which has been actively seeking to exert greater federal oversight over state-managed election procedures. The appellate court’s decision upholds a previous ruling by a district court judge, who had already dismissed the government's request, warning that such actions could lead to the disenfranchisement of legitimate voters.

In their written opinion, the appeals court judges noted that there is no practical method to isolate the ballots of specific individuals without causing severe disruption to the broader electoral infrastructure. The court found no clear error in the lower court's assessment that the requested intervention would have potentially catastrophic consequences for the state's voting system.

Election officials in California have emphasized that the process is already well underway, with hundreds of thousands of ballots having been processed. Furthermore, they noted that once ballots are processed, they are anonymized, making it impossible to link individual votes back to specific voters. The Justice Department has not yet provided a formal response to the court's latest decision.