Follow-Up: 9th Circuit Judges Question DOJ Lawsuit to Set Aside California Mail Ballots, Citing Elections Clause
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday appeared skeptical of a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to force California to set aside thousands of mail-in ballots, with two judges sharply questioning the department's lawyer during a rare weekend oral argument, Reuters reported. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, said the lawsuit cannot be reconciled with the U.S. Constitution's Elections Clause, which gives state officials authority to set election processes.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit on October 15 in federal court in Los Angeles. It asks California to separate any ballots received from people on the administration's list — some 20,000 people the department says are likely non-citizens registered to vote in the state — and not count them until it has verified that the voters are citizens. The department has warned California election officials that they could face federal scrutiny if they refuse to help identify suspected non-citizens, and it later filed an emergency motion asking the 9th Circuit to expedite the case. GSM previously reported that the department also wrote to California's 57 counties demanding that the ballots be set aside within a set deadline.
"It seems to me that you want us to issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law that the California legislature has adopted pursuant to the Elections Clause," Bennett told Justice Department attorney Matthew Donnelly. "How can we do that?" Donnelly responded that California's actions are interfering with a federal criminal statute that prohibits non-citizens from voting. Bennett rejected that argument, saying the Constitution does not authorize the relief the Justice Department is seeking.
The lawsuit is a high-profile effort by the Trump administration to expand the federal government's role in elections ahead of the November 3 midterms, in which Republicans are locked in a tight battle to retain control of both houses of Congress. The panel has not yet ruled on the emergency motion.
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Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于洛杉矶市中心第一街的美国联邦法院大楼（资料照片），司法部的选票隔离诉讼即在洛杉矶联邦法院提起。Daniel L. Lu 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons 发布。/ The United States Courthouse on First Street in downtown Los Angeles (file photo), where the Justice Department filed its ballot-separation lawsuit. Photo by Daniel L. Lu, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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