A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel on Monday rejected the Justice Department’s request for an immediate order directing California to segregate roughly 20,000 mail‑in ballots tied to individuals the Trump administration claims are likely non‑citizens, ABC News reported.
What the panel decided
The panel ruled 2–1 that it lacks jurisdiction at this stage and sent the dispute back to district court, which has a hearing set for Tuesday afternoon, according to ABC News. Circuit Judge Mark Bennett (appointed by President Donald Trump) and Circuit Judge Gabriel Sanchez (appointed by President Joe Biden) formed the majority. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay (a Trump appointee) dissented.
Why the majority balked
In their opinion, Judges Bennett and Sanchez wrote that “The United States’s claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one,” attributing the posture to the government’s timing and California’s established election processes, per ABC News’ account of the ruling.
The legal tension raised
During a rare Sunday emergency hearing, Bennett questioned whether the appeals court had jurisdiction and raised concerns about the Constitution’s Elections Clause. He asked, “How can the legislature making laws with regard to the manner of holding elections be preempted by a criminal statute passed by the Congress, especially when both the Congress and the California Legislature have made it illegal for non-citizens to vote?” according to ABC News.
What DOJ and California have said
Earlier in October, the DOJ sued California, accusing the state of failing to review a list of alleged non‑citizens whom the Trump administration claimed were sent mail‑in ballots for next week’s midterm election, ABC News reported.
Los Angeles officials told the court that a preliminary analysis of 200 names from the 20,000‑person list showed a “high percentage” of individuals who reported being born in the United States, and that 71.2% of those records had no voting history. Of the 200, nearly 40% “indicate that they were born in the United States,” the filing said, per ABC News.
DOJ attorney Matthew Donnelly said the government sought emergency relief after California disclosed the volume of ballots already being processed—numbering in the hundreds of thousands—according to ABC News.
