DOJ asks for Supreme Court to intervene on California ballot demands — SkimNews
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- Department of Justice filed a notice Monday seeking injunctive relief from the U.S. Supreme Court in its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls, saying it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens whose ballots should not be counted until citizenship is verified.
- David Carter, a Clinton appointee, rejected DOJ's request that California set aside and stop processing ballots of thousands of people, describing federal intervention in state election administration as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."
- 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — a divided panel of Mark Bennett (Trump appointee) and Gabriel Sanchez (Biden appointee) — denied DOJ's emergency request, citing the Purcell principle against changing election rules on the eve of an election and the Constitution's grant of state authority over elections, and warning of "a material risk" of disenfranchisement and of jeopardizing Los Angeles County's entire election; Trump appointee Patrick Bumatay dissented.
- National Voter Registration Act was also cited in the opinion, and it bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
- California and Los Angeles County have prevailed so far: courts accepted their arguments that the federal list is unreliable and that creating a system to segregate ballots while voting is already underway is infeasible, and county officials found many people on DOJ's list had no active voter registration and were not mailed ballots — making the actual number of disputed ballots likely much smaller than 20,000.
- UCLA Voting Rights Project data scientists, granted court-ordered access to the DOJ's list in another lawsuit, found that 42% of the names do not appear on California's current voter roll and that the list includes naturalized citizens.
- San Francisco — a federal judge's late-Friday temporary restraining order barred the Trump administration from threatening, intimidating or coercing election officials into halting ballot processing for registered voters the government alleges are ineligible, and the government appealed that order; DOJ had also sent subpoenas to California election officials and warned of criminal prosecution.
Why it matters: Election Day is one day away, and the 20,000-ballot fight rests on a list that UCLA's Voting Rights Project found 42% of which does not appear on California's voter roll, including naturalized citizens. For Los Angeles County officials already processing ballots, the practical number in dispute is far smaller than 20,000.
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