Justice Department seeks Supreme Court intervention on California ballot rules
Federal officials want a federal judge to pause processing of 20,000 ballots pending citizenship verification, despite court rulings favoring the state.
By Anthony Lawson ·
The Department of Justice filed a notice on Monday seeking an emergency injunction from the U.S. Supreme Court. This move occurs one day before Election Day in a dispute over California voter rolls.
The DOJ claims it identified 20,000 likely noncitizens on the California voter roll. The department wants the high court to order the state to set aside and stop processing those ballots until citizenship is verified. A lower federal judge described the department's actions as a broad pattern of attempted election interference.
A divided panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the DOJ's request on Friday. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez wrote that granting the federal government relief carried a material risk of disenfranchisement. They noted that creating a new system to segregate ballots while voting was already underway was infeasible.
The majority opinion cited the Purcell principle. This legal standard holds that election rules should not change on the eve of an election. The judges also pointed to the Constitution, which grants states authority to administer elections. The National Voter Registration Act bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the decision. County election officials argue the federal list is unreliable. They note that many individuals on the DOJ list did not have active voter registrations or receive mailed ballots.
Data scientists from the UCLA Voting Rights Project analyzed the DOJ list after a court order granted access in a separate lawsuit. They found that 42 percent of the names did not appear on California's current voter roll. The analysis also identified naturalized citizens on the federal list.
The DOJ has escalated its conflict with California officials in recent weeks. The department sent subpoenas to election officials and warned of criminal prosecution for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday. That order bars the administration from threatening or coercing officials to stop processing ballots. The federal government has appealed that ruling.
