Judge Who Rejected DOJ Voter Roll Demand Takes Over California Ballot Case: David Carter Replaces Trump Appointee
The Justice Department's ballot case against California changed judges on Wednesday, October 21: U.S. District Judge David O. Carter took over the case from Judge John Holcomb, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Trump in 2020 and had been assigned to the case on Tuesday. Carter was appointed by President Clinton. Transfer paperwork indicates the cases involve the same or closely related events and substantially related questions of law or fact, and would otherwise require substantial duplication of judicial work if heard by separate judges.
The case is United States v. State of California, No. 2:26-cv-12025. The Department of Justice sued California on October 15, seeking an emergency order requiring election officials to set aside mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters federal agencies have labeled likely noncitizens, and to prevent those ballots from being counted until the voters' citizenship can be verified. In January, Carter dismissed a separate DOJ lawsuit seeking California's unredacted voter registration data, ruling that the department was trying to exceed the legal authority Congress had given it. That reasoning bears directly on one of California's central arguments in the new case: California argues Congress never authorized DOJ to transform the criminal prohibition on noncitizen voting into a civil tool for forcing states to change how they administer elections.
California has challenged the reliability of the list. Los Angeles County's review of a sample of about 200 names found that 25.8 percent of the flagged voters had a U.S. place of birth on file, most had never voted, and more than half had canceled or inactive registrations; a county assistant registrar called the list unreliable. In an opposition brief filed October 20, the office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote that DOJ's bid borders on the absurd.
In a related action, the Justice Department announced on October 19 that it had charged 28 green card holders in Operation Protect the Vote with registration and voting related crimes, arresting 11 of them. With less than two weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, whether the court approves setting aside the ballots is drawing wide attention.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州 Santa Clara 县选民登记处官方选票投递箱实景（加州邮寄选票投递箱资料图）。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons，作者 Yngvadottir。
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