Monday night’s development: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit declined the Trump administration’s emergency attempt to make California election officials set aside ballots connected to roughly 20,000 people the Justice Department says are “likely” noncitizens. The panel held that the government had not given the district court enough opportunity to rule first, so the case heads back to a Southern California federal judge for a hearing Tuesday, October 27. Read the Ninth Circuit order and opinions.
That matters because California had already mailed vote-by-mail ballots under its existing election rules before DOJ sent its October list. Judge Gabriel Sanchez wrote that the government’s claimed emergency was at least partly self-made: it filed close to the election, after ballot processing had begun, then sought a federal order to change the state’s procedures on the fly. That is some top-shelf administrative planning right there, like trying to order a proper Italian sub after the shop has locked up and acting shocked that the lights are off. Primary source: Ninth Circuit PDF.
Two judges separately warned that forcing California to segregate ballots at this late stage could risk disenfranchising eligible voters and scramble an election already underway. Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, wrote that the administration appeared to lack constitutional authority to compel California to separate the ballots; Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, arguing federal law required the state to stop processing ballots tied to likely noncitizens. The appellate ruling did not decide the full merits of DOJ’s underlying lawsuit. Associated Press reporting.
So, for now, no federal bulldozer through California’s ballot-counting operation. The larger case remains alive, but the court declined to let a disputed list and a rushed emergency appeal turn election administration into a CB-radio pileup five minutes before closing time. Voters should not mistake the ruling for a final resolution; Tuesday’s district-court hearing is the next documented step. Ninth Circuit order.
Sources
- https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/10/26/26-7070.pdf
- https://apnews.com/article/california-noncitizen-voting-justice-department-lawsuit-ed14390afb8af8fde1c2d0f6a90a0761
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Featured image: Richard H. Chambers United States Court of Appeals, Pasadena, California (14517824955).jpg by Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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