Federal judge bars DOJ from pressuring election workers on ballots

Order also bars federal demands to segregate or not count disputed ballots

A federal judge has barred the Justice Department from threatening or coercing election workers to stop processing ballots, in an order issued late Friday that also prohibits the department from demanding that local election officials segregate or not count ballots the federal government deems may have been cast by ineligible voters.

The order came the same day a federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department’s request for California to set aside disputed ballots received in the midterm election, the latest adverse ruling for the administration in its ballot-segregation litigation.

The administration has alleged that California sent ballots to about 20,000 people who may not be US citizens, and it wants the state to set those ballots aside and not count them until citizenship can be verified. California officials say the list is highly unreliable and most likely includes many people who are US citizens.

A district court judge rejected that request on Wednesday and warned that the Justice Department’s demands could disenfranchise citizens.

On Friday, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the request 2-1. “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,” the panel wrote.

Judge Mark J Bennett, who was appointed by Donald Trump, and Judge Gabriel P Sanchez, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, authored the majority opinion.

Millions of people have already voted in California’s midterm election, which concludes on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed, and election officials have said processed votes cannot be matched back to the voters who submitted them.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, has warned: “Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy.”

A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. In a statement about the department’s efforts to root out noncitizen voting, the department said: “Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting. Enforcing that law is not an agenda item. It is the Department’s job.”