A federal appeals court has again rejected the Trump administration’s bid to set aside more than 20,000 California ballots it flagged as possible noncitizen votes, leaving a core election-integrity fight unresolved midstream.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday turned down the Justice Department’s latest request for extraordinary relief, marking the second rejection in a week of the administration’s effort to force California election officials to isolate those ballots.
A 2-1 panel held that the United States had not made the showing required to intervene while voting was already underway. The ruling leaves the ballots in the normal stream and keeps the fight over noncitizen registration alive without the safeguard the administration sought.
NBC News reported that Judges Mark Bennet, a Trump nominee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden nominee, formed the majority. Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, dissented.
The majority framed the ask as too sweeping for an ongoing election. It backed the district court’s finding that officials could not cleanly pull the named ballots without risking the wider system.
The panel wrote that the United States had not cleared the legal bar for that kind of last-minute order.
"The United States has not made the required showing that such extraordinary relief, during an ongoing election, is clearly required by law."
It also adopted the lower court’s practical conclusion.
"As the district court found, and we discern no clear error, there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system."
That language closed the door on the relief the administration wanted before more ballots were counted.
U.S. District Judge David Carter had ruled against the request on Wednesday. He said the move collided with long-settled rules that put states in charge of running their own elections.
"If Plaintiff’s last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process."
Carter also questioned the government’s list-building methods. He pointed to earlier claims in Nevada, where an initial figure of 15,903 alleged noncitizen registrants fell to 6,218, then to 185 after manual review. Nevada officials later confirmed all 185 were citizens.
He wrote that the vagueness of the procedures and the record in other states left him unable to treat the process as credible. He also noted a July Department of Homeland Security claim that noncitizen registrations in California ran closer to 200,000, far above the more than 20,000 ballots at issue in the current demand.
The Trump administration filed suit earlier this month. It demanded that California election officials set aside ballots from more than 20,000 people it contended may have been noncitizens.
Federal law and California law both bar noncitizens from voting. The administration cast the lawsuit as an effort to enforce that ban while votes were still being cast and counted.
An earlier appeals-court ruling in the same fight already faulted the timing. The court said the claimed emergency was “at least in part, a self-constructed one” because the government waited until too close to the election to step in. Friday’s order was the second panel rejection in a week.
Judge Bumatay dissented. He described the government’s proposed remedy as modest and argued the court should have allowed federal and state officials to work together.
"The federal government and the States can work together. California decided long ago that aliens can’t vote in its elections. Today, the federal government merely seeks to safeguard that decision. We should have let them try."
That view puts the dispute in plain terms. California already says noncitizens cannot vote. The administration asked for a way to hold aside ballots tied to people it flagged. The majority said the law and the logistics did not support that order during an active election.
Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, which helped defend the case, praised the decision and attacked the Justice Department’s request.
"The Department of Justice sought to throw out the voices of more than 20,000 Californians without credible evidence and outside the established safeguards that protect voters’ rights."
She added that elections must rest on facts, law, and constitutional principles rather than political interference. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond when asked about the ruling or a possible emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
The practical result is straightforward. More than 20,000 ballots the administration wanted isolated will be handled under California’s ordinary process. The court’s majority saw no workable way to pull them without wider damage. The dissent saw a limited step to enforce a ban both sides say already exists.
Lawful voters have a right to expect that only eligible ballots decide close races. When courts block even a targeted review because the calendar is tight, the integrity gap does not close, it just waits for the next lawsuit.
