Federal judge blocks Justice Department effort to segregate California mail ballots

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California rejected the Justice Department's emergency request to set aside as many as 20,000 mail-in ballots in California for a citizenship-status review. Carter warned that the move would "wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway" and would infringe on the state's authority to conduct its own elections.

The Justice Department had based its lawsuit on a purchased voter list matched with other government data, arguing that thousands of voters might be non-citizens. Carter wrote that voters who meet California's registration requirements must not be deprived of their core voting right because of "unfounded allegations stemming from a procedure rife with uncertainty and errors."

The judge, a Clinton appointee, said the proposed segregation would create a chilling effect on election workers and voters, and could discount the votes of U.S. citizens. He noted that the federal government already has tools to address voter fraud, such as prosecuting non-citizens who illegally vote, and that state participation does not affect federal enforcement decisions.

The Justice Department filed an appeal on Wednesday evening. The appeal follows a recent 9th Circuit decision that sent the case back to Carter, indicating that the department's arguments were likely to fail on the merits. Election law experts view the case as a test of how far the Justice Department will go to challenge state ballot-counting processes.

The department had previously supplied similar lists to Washington state officials and made broader claims about non-citizen registrations in other Democratic-led states. In California, officials who examined the provided list found many names were either not on voter rolls or were suspended, and some identified as likely non-citizens were actually U.S.-born, a point disputed by Homeland Security officials.