in mid-October, accusing them<\/a> of failing to meet a 48-hour deadline to review a list of 20,000 people it alleged were likely noncitizens on the state\u2019s voter rolls. The administration asked the judge to stop the state from counting those ballots until immigration status checks could be completed. The Justice Department made similar demands Monday in Washington, another state with races that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate and House.<\/p>\nBoth state and federal law prohibit noncitizens from voting. But California officials say it\u2019s not even clear the administration\u2019s purported 20,000 noncitizen voters are actually not U.S. citizens. In court papers, Los Angeles election officials said the majority of a random sample of voters that the Department of Justice identified as immigrants seemed to have been born in the United States. The Justice Department, for its part, has said there is as much to lose from keeping the potentially illegal ballots in the count.<\/p>\n
After a district judge had scheduled an Oct. 27 hearing on the issue, the federal government appealed to the 9th Circuit Court, arguing that a faster decision was needed to prevent the further counting of votes.<\/p>\n
But two of the three 9th Circuit Court judges rejected that argument on Monday, writing that the federal government \u201cfailed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider\u201d their initial request to sequester the ballots in question.<\/p>\n
The time-sensitive emergency that the federal government used to justify the appeal, wrote Gabriel Sanchez, a circuit judge appointed by President Joe Biden, was at least in part \u201cthe product of the United States\u2019s own decisions\u201d to file so close to the elections, after votes had already started to get counted.<\/p>\n
The federal government was delayed \u201cin realizing that existing California state law governs the issuance and processing of ballots, in recognizing that California has millions of registered voters and processes ballots on a schedule aligned with that scale, and in communicating to the court its desired relief,\u201d Sanchez wrote.<\/p>\n
One judge wrote that setting ballots aside would invite \u2018electoral chaos\u2019<\/p>\n
He wrote that setting aside the ballots at this stage \u201cwould transform California\u2019s election rules for an election that is already underway\u201d and \u201cusher in electoral chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Mark J. Bennett, who was nominated by Trump, also said that the federal government\u2019s arguments weren\u2019t supported by the law, writing that it appeared the administration had no power under the Constitution to force California to separate the ballots.<\/p>\n
Judge Patrick Bumatay, who was appointed by Trump, forcefully dissented against the ruling. He argued that federal law precludes \u201cCalifornia from commingling ballots likely cast by aliens with legitimate ballots, because it encourages and induces illegal voting. Stopping that practice for those identified as likely noncitizens is the bare minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bumatay also affirmed the federal government\u2019s arguments about the need for an urgent ruling to sequester the ballots. While he conceded that the federal government could potentially prosecute fraudulent voters after the election, Bumatay said that the federal government \u201chas an interest in stopping the illegal voting in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
California\u2019s attorney general called ruling a \u2018welcome speed bump\u2019 against Trump\u2019s attacks<\/p>\n
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, hailed Monday\u2019s ruling against the Republican administration as a \u201cwelcome speed bump to Trump\u2019s disgusting attacks on the Constitution and our country\u2019s democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, he urged voters to cast ballots early and \u201cparticipate in democracy, don\u2019t become disillusioned.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 9th Circuit decision sends the case back to a federal judge in Southern California, who will hear arguments from both sides on Tuesday at 1 pm.<\/p>\n
Neither the Justice Department nor the Office of the U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California immediately responded to an emailed inquiry asking for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ballots are sorted the day after California’s primary election at the LA County Ballot Processing Center, June 3,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-509078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/RK7KIDBYGPREVYMLS5KCIPY24Y.jpg\")
Ballots are sorted the day after California’s primary election at the LA County Ballot Processing Center, June 3, 2026, in City of Industry, Calif. (AP Photo\/Jae C. Hong, File) <\/p>\n