9th Circuit Court Blocks DOJ Attempt to Suspend 20,000 California Mail Ballots

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday denied the Justice Department's emergency appeal that sought to force California to set aside about 20,000 mail-in ballots the department alleges were cast by noncitizens. The panel said it lacked authority to rule on the matter before the district court had addressed the lawsuit.

Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Judge Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, wrote that the United States' claimed emergency was, in part, self-constructed, noting delays caused by the department's own filing and its recognition of California's existing ballot-processing laws.

"The United States’s claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one," the majority opinion stated. "At least part of the delay here is attributable to the United States’s own delay in filing suit, in 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."

Trump appointee Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the majority. The ruling returns the case to the U.S. District Court in California, where a hearing is set for Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET. The Justice Department had filed the lawsuit earlier this month to prevent California officials from counting the contested ballots after a district judge declined to rule on the issue last week.