Ninth Circuit Orders California to Answer DOJ's Emergency Request to Set Aside Ballots Sent to 20,000 Suspected Noncitizens
The appeals court gave the state until noon Saturday to respond after the district judge missed the Justice Department's deadline. A hearing is still set for Tuesday.
A federal appeals court has ordered California to answer the Trump administration's emergency request over mail-in ballots sent to about 20,000 people the Justice Department believes are not citizens, Fox News reports.
The order. The Ninth Circuit issued it late Friday, after the Justice Department filed an emergency request earlier that day asking for a ruling by Saturday. California must respond by noon Saturday. The department went to the appeals court because U.S. District Judge David Carter did not rule by the deadline it had asked for.
What DOJ wants. The department is asking California election officials to set aside the ballots tied to people on its list while their eligibility is reviewed, instead of processing them with all the other votes. Its filing, signed by Attorney General Todd Blanche and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, says: "This is an emergency." It adds that "every minute of processing that occurs without segregating the ballots of suspected non-eligible voters causes untraceable disenfranchisement and dilution of the votes of United States citizens."
What California says. State election officials have rejected the demand. In court filings they argue that county offices lack the authority and the access to federal records needed to check anyone's citizenship. They also say setting the ballots aside is impossible once a ballot has been processed, because after its signature is verified it is separated from its identifying envelope and mixed in with the rest. According to court records, Los Angeles County alone has already processed 331,000 ballots.
The timeline. Essayli's office filed the suit Oct. 15, about two weeks after California began mailing ballots. He told Fox News Digital earlier that investigators have evidence the 20,000 people received ballots this month, and called that number "the floor." Fox's Matt Finn reports a hearing before Judge Carter is still scheduled for Tuesday, and it is unclear whether the Ninth Circuit will rule before then.
Note for readers: the 20,000 figure and the claim that these people are noncitizens are the Justice Department's. California has not accepted either, and no court has ruled on them. We read Fox's report, not the court filings.