Court Denies White House Bid to Toss California Ballots

CBS News reports that U.S. District Judge David Carter on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's bid to make California election officials separate out mail ballots from roughly 20,000 people it claims are not U.S. citizens.[3]Mother Jones quotes Carter's 26-page ruling: "Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government."[4]According to Mother Jones, the Justice Department told Carter at a Tuesday hearing that it built its list entirely by comparing a commercially bought dataset of partial California voter rolls with a government list of people assigned numbers in the federal immigration system.[4]NPR reports that Carter wrote this protocol "raises significant concerns" and that he could not conclude it was credible.[1]Roll Call reports that Carter's order cited Nevada, where the administration first claimed up to 15,903 noncitizens were registered, later lowered that figure to 185, and state officials then found all 185 were citizens.[5]Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said in a statement quoted by CBS that "this ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution."[3]Mother Jones reports that the administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit less than two hours after the order was issued.[4]NPR says the case could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.[1]