Court Denies White House Bid to Toss California Ballots

The Trump administration’s bid to force California to toss the ballots of some 20,000 voters it unsubstantially claimed were “likely noncitizens” was struck down on Wednesday by a California district court amid long-standing apprehension over federal enforcement impeding elections. 

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Judge David Carter wrote in a 26-page ruling. “In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too.”

The Trump administration’s lawsuit came as part of “Operation Protect the Vote,” an initiative the Justice Department describes as “a coordinated effort among all four California-based United States Attorney’s Offices to combat and root out fraud in U.S. elections and protect electoral integrity.” Federal prosecutors in the state charged 28 people and arrested at least 11 from its list of 20,000 last week, alleging they all registered or voted illegally.

Carter, a Clinton appointee, said Wednesday that the federal government’s demands “are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials.”

“This was a last-ditch attempt by the Trump administration to use faulty, junk data to deprive eligible voters of their rights and manufacture a non-existent crisis,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, CEO of Common Cause, a government watchdog. The Justice Department told Carter in a Tuesday hearing that it formed its 20,000-person list entirely by checking a commercially-bought dataset containing partial California voter rolls with a government list of people who had been assigned numbers in the federal immigration system. 

Less than two hours after Carter issued his order, the Trump administration filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which had previously rejected its claim. 

Millions of Californians have already voted in several close races, including the House contest for the state’s 22nd congressional district, between Republican incumbent David Valadao and Sen. Bernie Sanders–endorsed Democrat Randy Villegas.