Justice Department answers five court losses by charging 63 voters, seeking sanctions on its own analysts.

As it ran on the front

The Justice Department told the country that 190,000 people on California's voter rolls were not citizens. That number did not survive contact with a court. All together now, follow the subtraction: 190,000 became 20,000, an eighty-nine percent cut, and an outside count of what remained found four in ten of those names were wrongly flagged. The department built an emergency lawsuit on the smaller number anyway, asking California to set aside ballots from the 20,000 named voters until someone could verify their citizenship — the verifying was supposed to happen after the lawsuit, not before it.

The courts did not agree, in order. On October 27, a federal appeals panel voted 2-1 against the suit. On October 29, a district judge named David Carter — nominated to the bench by a Democratic president — declined the same request. On October 30, a second appeals panel, also 2-1, rejected it again, leaving standing the lower court's finding that the list "isn't credible." Three courts, three refusals; the number stood unvindicated each time.…