Follow-Up: Federal Judge Carter Denies Justice Department Bid to Set Aside More Than 20,000 California Mail Ballots

LOS ANGELES, Los Angeles County, California — U.S. District Judge David Carter, hearing the California ballot case in Los Angeles, ruled on the evening of October 28 to deny the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) request for a temporary restraining order, refusing to order California to stop processing mail ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters. The Justice Department alleges the voters on its list are likely noncitizens; the ruling means California counties will continue to process and count returned mail ballots as usual ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.

"Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch," Carter wrote in the 26-page ruling. He concluded: "Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred. If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger. This Court declines to be a party to such process."

The Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County on October 15, arguing the matter was urgent because once a returned mail ballot envelope passes signature verification, the ballot is separated from its envelope to protect voter confidentiality and can no longer be retrieved; it also argued that votes by noncitizens dilute the votes of U.S. citizens.

Reuters reported that the department did not indicate how many of the more than 20,000 people it flagged had actually submitted a mail ballot. Carter noted the federal government can still address individual cases by prosecuting people for illegally voting as noncitizens; DOJ officials say dozens of people have been charged in the past two months with registering or voting without U.S. citizenship.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in the state's court filing: "This litigation is a precursor to further interference here in California. The Court must not be drawn into this chilling degradation of democratic values and constitutional principles."

A Los Angeles County analysis of a small sample of people on the DOJ list found that a significant portion had said in records they were born in the United States, and county officials say many on the list do not have active voter registrations. But Nicolas Bartell, a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), contested that in court filings, writing that his office's review found none of those individuals were U.S.-born, while acknowledging that four of them "might have a claim to U.S. citizenship."

Kassra Oskooi, a University of Delaware political scientist serving as an expert witness for voting-rights groups intervening in the case, told the court in a declaration that he believes USCIS's matching protocol "is likely to be unreliable."

The ruling is the Justice Department's second setback in the case within days: on October 26, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 2-1 to reject the department's emergency appeal, saying it had not given the district court adequate time to rule. Carter held a hearing in Los Angeles on October 27 and issued his decision on the evening of October 28. NPR reported that the Justice Department is expected to appeal the denial, and the matter could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

California had 23 million registered voters as of December 2025, according to state records cited by Reuters, and holds 52 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, more than any other state; the November 3 midterms will decide control of both houses of Congress. The department has taken similar steps in other states in recent days, asking Washington state this week to review a list of 400 registered voters it says may not be citizens, and suing in Alaska last week to block certification of the state's Senate race if the Republican incumbent loses by a slim margin.

Related: California ballot case heard in Los Angeles on Oct. 27 as DOJ seeks to hold more than 20,000 mail ballots

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：位于洛杉矶市中心的美国联邦法院大楼（First Street U.S. Courthouse，资料图）。Daniel L. Lu 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons / Photo: First Street U.S. Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles (file photo). By Daniel L. Lu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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