20,000 California Ballots Stay Countable After Appeals Court Rejection

Residents of California who mailed in their ballots for the November 3 midterm election can expect those votes to be counted after a federal appeals court rejected a challenge from the Trump administration. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling on Monday, allowing the state to proceed with tabulation rather than holding the ballots in storage.

The dispute centers on approximately 20,000 mailed ballots that the Department of Justice argued belonged to individuals who are "likely" non-citizens. The administration filed its lawsuit on October 15, giving state officials less than three weeks to prepare for the election. It sought an expedited decision from the appeals court to prevent the ballots from being counted.

A two-to-one majority on the panel denied the government's request to sequester the ballots. Judge Gabriel Sanchez, writing for the majority, stated that the administration had not provided lower courts sufficient time to review the case. He noted that election administration is a responsibility reserved for the state under the U.S. Constitution.

Sanchez warned that granting the petition would be "inviting disorder and confusion for voters and election officials alike." He added that the federal court was asking the state legislature to handle a matter squarely within its traditional domain. The dissenting judge argued for a stay, but the majority ruled that the state should maintain control over the process.

The Trump administration has not publicly released the methodology used to create its list of potential non-citizen voters. It has also not specified how it determined that the individuals on the list were ineligible. This lack of transparency has drawn criticism from state officials who view the lawsuit as an attempt to interfere with the voting process.

Shirley Weber, the California Secretary of State, called the litigation a "reckless political stunt" in a court filing on October 20. Her legal team argued that the suit threatened to disenfranchise thousands of Californians in the middle of the election cycle. California officials have expressed doubt about the administration's claim that 20,000 ballots went to non-citizens.

The case remains active in a lower court, with a hearing scheduled for Tuesday. The broader context includes the Department of Justice suing 30 states and Washington, D.C., for access to voter rolls. The administration has lost 26 of those cases so far without securing a victory in any of them. Experts note that non-citizen voting is rare, with federal authorities charging only 129 individuals for illegal voting since 1996.

Last week, the administration charged 28 immigrants in California with illegally voting. Reporting from the Los Angeles Times indicated that some of the accused were confused by the charges and maintained they had never registered to vote. Immigration agents have been assigned to identify non-citizen voters in some cases, knocking on doors to inquire about residency and citizenship status.