Appeals court rejects DOJ request for immediate order demanding California segregate 20,000 mail-in ballots from those Trump administration says are likely non-citizens.
Page B45From§Eachthe evening edition — 27 October 2026
20,000 BALLOTS
DOJ, losing its California ballot fight for the fourth time, asks Washington to set aside hundreds more.
As it ran on the front
I read dockets for a living, which obligates me to note that the Department of Justice has now lost the same argument four times since September, and has filed it a fifth.
Start with the record, because the record is the whole story. The accusation came first and empty-handed: a senator called California's mail ballots a harvesting operation and could not point to a single prosecuted case. The Justice Department supplied one on October 19th — 28 green card holders charged with registering and voting, 48 voting-crime counts in all, the docket the accusation had been missing. That was last week's column.…
…(cont) This week the department tried to extend the same theory to the ballots themselves. On October 23rd it asked the Ninth Circuit to order California to segregate 20,000 mail ballots within 48 hours, on the theory that the people who cast them might not be citizens. On October 26th a three-judge panel answered, 2 to 1: no. Not on the merits — the majority found it lacked jurisdiction to grant the emergency order at all. California had already refused the 48-hour deadline; the court agreed it didn't have to comply with an order the court itself wasn't empowered to issue.
All together now — count the losses. September 10th, the First Circuit called the administration's mail-in voting order "likely unlawful." September 14th, the Supreme Court declined to enforce it before the midterms anyway. September 24th, the California Supreme Court ordered a sheriff who'd seized 650,000 ballots to give them back, calling the seizure unlawful under a statute that says ballots do not leave election officials' custody, ever. October 26th, the Ninth Circuit, 2-1. Four courts, four no's, one filing office.
The fifth filing came the same week as the fourth no. On October 27th, less than two weeks after the California demand, the department asked Washington state to set aside more than 400 ballots on the identical theory: suspected noncitizens, named by the government, unverified by any court. Washington has competitive House and Senate races. So did California's targeted counties. The document does not explain the coincidence. The document never explains anything; it just asks, again, for a bigger list, in a new state, before the count that decides who holds the chamber.
Four denials have not produced a different filing. They have produced the same filing with a new venue line. All together now — that's the whole case, clause by clause, state by state, and it still hasn't named one proven vote.
“They couldn't name one prosecuted case, so they built forty-eight, and when forty-eight wasn't enough they went after twenty thousand mail ballots outright — got told no four times and just moved the ask to Washington state. This isn't about finding noncitizen voters, it's about building a list the government can point at the day the count gets close. Four strikes in, they're not slowing down, they're expanding — and the next list has your state's name on it if your race is close enough to matter.”
“The administration is simply asking states to double-check a few names before the count — that's basic election integrity, not an assault on anybody's ballot. Four courts said no on jurisdiction, not on the merits, so the underlying concern stands untouched. And look, moving the same ask to Washington right after losing in California isn't a pattern, it's just — okay, I hear it now, that is exactly what a pattern sounds like.”
Earlier in this story
- Senator accuses California of ballot harvesting; Justice Department files charges for registering to vote. By Mitch · the morning edition, 26 October 2026
- Senator calls California 'guilty' of ballot harvesting, names zero cases prosecuted under it By Mitch · the evening edition, 26 October 2026
- Attorney general vows fair Cornell probe, hires someone else to be fair, then won't discuss it By Lou · the evening edition, 25 October 2026
- Attorney general vows fair Cornell probe, hires outside lawyer to be fair for her By Lou · the morning edition, 25 October 2026
The receipts
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday asked an appeals court to intervene in its lawsuit against California to temporarily block the state from counting more than 20,000 mail-in ballots cast by what the Trump administration claims are from non-U.S. citizens. The request, made to the Ninth U.S.
A federal appeals court Monday evening dismissed the Trump administration’s emergency appeal seeking to require California to set aside mail ballots associated with more than 20,000 people the government suspects are noncitizens or illegal immigrants ineligible to vote. In a 2-1 order, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found it…
The DOJ's lawsuit accused state officials of not meeting a 48-hour deadline to review the thousands of names the administration deemed suspicious.
Newsom accuses Trump of ‘assault on democracy’ as DoJ claims 20,000 registered voters in state are non-citizens A US federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens. The court on Monday ruled 2-1…
Anthropic admitted that its Claude chatbot accessed voter statistics in Georgia without being instructed to do so. Also on Monday, an appeals court ruled against the Trump administration's bid to block certain votes in California. CBS News election law expert and contributor David Becker has more.
This is the latest sign of the administration’s attempts to challenge states with competitive midterm races that could determine control of Congress The Trump administration on Monday asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship, less than two…
The move is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to involve itself in ballot counting and certification that’s handled by state officials.
By a 2-1 vote, a federal appeals court panel denied the Trump administration’s request that it immediately order the state to set aside 20,000 mail-in ballots.
A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed the DOJ's effort to force California election officials to set aside thousands of ballots that the Trump administration claims may have been cast by alleged noncitizens.
· Appeals Court Rejects 'Likely Unlawful' Trump Push to Undermine Mail-In Voting as Supreme Court Looms from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
· Supreme Court denies Trump’s emergency request to enforce mail-in ballot restrictions from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· California Supreme Court rules sheriff who ran for governor must return seized ballots from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.