State Tried to Void 20,000 Ballots. Courts Said No — Again

The administration of President Donald Trump asked a federal court to set aside 20,000 ballots in California, and for the second time in less than a week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals told it no. The ruling landed Friday, with less than four days to go before the November 3 midterm elections.

The majority didn't mince words about what the request would actually do. "The consequence of the United States's request is not merely ballot segregation, but ultimately both the cancellation of the ballot and the removal of voters from the voting rolls," the judges wrote. They said they had "major concerns" that granting it would "harm the public interest by risking the disenfranchisement of eligible voters and putting the entire tabulation process in jeopardy."

Who Has the Power

The justice apparatus of the most powerful government on earth sent California a list of 20,000 "likely non-citizens" on October 12, barely three weeks before voters were due to cast ballots. Three days later, on October 15, it sued to keep those ballots from being counted. California officials refused and asked for proof that the names on the list were really foreign nationals. According to the California government, none has been provided.

The list has a track record. Nevada and Washington got similar lists, and officials there found the documents largely inaccurate. In September, Nevada's state authorities said the administration had erroneously identified citizens as non-citizens. Not a single name was correct, according to the statement.

Who Gets Crushed

The people on that list are the ones who pay. The ruling spelled out the stakes: ballots cancelled, voters scrubbed from the rolls. Meanwhile, the administration last week charged 28 foreign nationals in California with election-related infractions. Some of the accused told the Los Angeles Times they had never registered to vote. The paper's reporting suggested some of the defendants shared the same name as eligible voters.

That's the human machinery behind a press release. A name match on a government spreadsheet, and suddenly a person is a defendant. Election fraud in the US is extremely rare, and so is non-citizen voting, despite Trump's assertion earlier this year that as many as 278,000 foreign nationals across the country were registered to cast a ballot.

What They're Calling "Order"

The administration went to the 9th Circuit seeking an emergency ruling. The court rejected that petition Monday, saying the administration hadn't given lower courts adequate time to weigh the matter. A lower court then ruled against the administration Wednesday. Washington appealed again, and lost again Friday.

The split on the panel tells its own story. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by Trump and by his predecessor Joe Biden respectively, formed the majority. Trump appointee Patrick Bumatay dissented, calling the petition a "reasonable request."

Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit "a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters." The Trump administration, for its part, has long accused California's Democratic leadership of "cheating" in elections.

The Election Trap

Note what's being fought over: 52 House seats, one chamber of Congress, in a state that's a Democratic stronghold. Two sets of officials, each claiming to defend the integrity of the vote, are wrestling over who gets to decide whose ballot counts. The court even framed the case around the Constitution's Elections Clause, which grants states exclusive authority to administer elections, though Congress may pass regulations on voting procedures.

The ballot box is a rulebook written by the powerful, and this week's fight shows who holds the pen. Whether a person's vote counts depends on a list compiled in Washington, reviewed by judges, and defended by governors. The voter at the bottom of that chain doesn't get a seat at the table. They get a ballot, if the apparatus lets it stand.