DOJ dropping suit over alleged noncitizen ballots

The Justice Department asked to dismiss the lawsuit because its requested remedy had become impractical. It wanted California to stop counting about 20,000 ballots allegedly cast by noncitizens until their immigration status could be checked. But the case moved too slowly to preserve those ballots separately.

The department’s motion said California would have already “commingled” the challenged ballots with lawful ones by the scheduled hearing. Once ballots are processed, they are anonymized. That meant officials could no longer reliably identify and isolate the ballots on the list. Bill Essayli had earlier acknowledged that the lawsuit could become irrelevant after Election Day.

The request came after the Supreme Court rejected the department’s emergency appeal and after Republicans suffered significant midterm losses. California officials said the list was outdated and included legitimate voters. Judge David O. Carter had also warned that late separation could disenfranchise citizens and disrupt the election.

Setting aside or sequestering ballots means physically or administratively separating particular ballots from the larger group. They would be held apart while officials checked whether they belonged to eligible voters. The Justice Department wanted California to isolate ballots linked to roughly 20,000 people it alleged were noncitizens.

That mattered because the department sought to prevent those ballots from being counted before immigration status was verified. The Supreme Court appeal asked for California to separate mail ballots from the people on the list. However, California had already processed many ballots, and the state said the list was outdated and included legitimate voters.

The practical window was closing. The article says processed ballots become completely anonymized, and the department’s motion said challenged ballots would be commingled with lawful ones. Judge Carter warned that separating them so late could disenfranchise citizens and wreak havoc on the midterm elections.

The challenged group was small compared with California’s overall electorate. Roughly 20,000 ballots represented about 0.09% of the state’s 23 million registered voters. Put another way, that is approximately one challenged ballot for every 1,150 registered voters.

Compared with ballots already processed, the share was also limited. California had processed roughly 9 million ballots by early Friday. Twenty thousand is about 0.22% of that total, or approximately one ballot for every 450 processed ballots. These comparisons describe scale, not whether any individual ballot was lawful.

The numbers still mattered because the lawsuit targeted ballots in an active election. Nearly 5 million ballots remained to be counted, according to state officials. The dispute centered on whether the challenged ballots could be identified and held aside without wrongly affecting legitimate voters or disrupting counting.

Processing changes a ballot from an identifiable election submission into an anonymous vote. The article states that once a ballot is processed, it is completely anonymized. This protects the secrecy of the vote, but it also means officials cannot simply look at a counted ballot and determine which listed voter submitted it.

That mechanism created the central timing problem. The lawsuit was filed after ballots had been sent to all 23 million registered voters and after hundreds of thousands had already been processed. As more ballots moved through the system, the challenged ballots became mixed with lawful ones. Officials therefore lacked a reliable way to separate them later.

The Justice Department’s motion said the state would have “commingled” the ballots by the upcoming hearing. Bill Essayli had previously argued that the case would be irrelevant after Election Day because the ballots could not then be sequestered. The motion therefore said dismissal was necessary.

Judge David O. Carter saw a serious risk in separating ballots so late in the election. California officials had said the Justice Department’s list was out of date and included legitimate voters. If officials removed or delayed ballots connected to that list, eligible citizens could lose the opportunity to have their votes counted.

The timing made the risk sharper. Ballots had already been sent to all of California’s 23 million registered voters, and hundreds of thousands had been processed when the lawsuit was filed. Processed ballots were anonymized and could become mixed with lawful ballots. Carter therefore warned that separating them might not be accurate or orderly.

He allowed California to proceed with elections as planned and appointed a special master in late October. His order said separation could disenfranchise citizens and “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections. The special master was scheduled to examine the list’s accuracy and whether officials had a separation mechanism.

The Justice Department filed the lawsuit and sought to stop California from counting roughly 20,000 ballots allegedly connected to noncitizens. It asked for those ballots to be separated until immigration status could be verified. The department later moved to dismiss after saying the ballots would already be mixed with lawful ones.

California election officials opposed the requested intervention. They said the list was outdated and included legitimate voters. The state continued processing ballots, while California officials reported about 9 million processed and nearly 5 million still to count. The Supreme Court declined the department’s emergency appeal.

Judge David O. Carter presided over the case, allowed the election to proceed, and warned that separation could disenfranchise citizens. He appointed a special master to assess the list’s accuracy and whether officials had a workable separation mechanism. The special master’s review was scheduled for a hearing that the dismissal motion sought to make unnecessary.

Voting by noncitizens in federal elections is generally illegal because federal elections are conducted for eligible U.S. citizens. Allowing an ineligible person to vote can lead to criminal penalties and undermine election rules. The article discusses allegations of noncitizen voting but does not explain the legal basis or verification systems in detail.

In general, election officials verify eligibility when people register and maintain voter rolls. They may compare registration information with government records, review citizenship attestations, check identifying details, and investigate possible mismatches. Officials also use notices, hearings, evidence reviews, and correction procedures before removing a voter or rejecting a ballot.

Those safeguards matter because records can be incomplete or outdated. The article says California officials considered the federal list outdated and believed it included legitimate voters. That dispute shows why an allegation or database match is not automatically proof that a particular ballot was cast illegally. Verification must distinguish real violations from record errors.