9th Circuit Dismisses U.S. Emergency Bid to Segregate About 20,000 California Mail Ballots

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed the U.S. government’s emergency bid to force California election officials to separate and withhold mail ballots tied to roughly 20,000 people the government labeled “likely” noncitizens, leaving the state’s current ballot-counting procedures in place for now.

In a brief order dated Oct. 26, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Los Angeles County’s motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction and denied the federal government’s emergency motion as moot. “We lack jurisdiction over this appeal. So we grant the County’s motion to dismiss this appeal and deny as moot the United States’s emergency motion for relief,” the panel wrote.

The ruling does not decide whether the federal government is entitled to the ballots it wants set aside. Instead, it blocks the government’s attempt to get immediate intervention from the appellate court while the underlying lawsuit continues in federal district court.

The United States sued California on Oct. 15 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, naming the state, Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber and Dean C. Logan, Los Angeles County’s registrar-recorder/county clerk, as defendants. In its complaint and emergency filings, the government asked the courts to order California and Los Angeles County to segregate and not tabulate vote-by-mail ballots from people it identified as likely noncitizens until citizenship could be verified. The case relies in part on 18 U.S.C. Section 611(a), the federal law barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

According to the 9th Circuit’s summary, federal officials provided California with an “October List” on or about Oct. 13 containing more than 20,000 names characterized as likely noncitizens registered to vote. But California had already mailed vote-by-mail ballots to all registered voters on Oct. 1, and counties were already processing returned ballots.

That timing became central to the fight. The Justice Department filed an emergency request for a temporary restraining order — a short-term court order meant to preserve the status quo — and sought a ruling by Nov. 3. The district court set a hearing for Oct. 27. The government then went to the 9th Circuit on Oct. 22, arguing that the lack of an immediate ruling amounted to a “constructive denial” of its request. The appeals court rejected that route on jurisdictional grounds, meaning the dispute now returns to the trial court.

Los Angeles County told the courts that it had already processed more than 331,000 vote-by-mail ballots since processing began Oct. 5, underscoring how disruptive the requested order could be in an election already underway. California and county officials have argued that state law governs ballot handling and that local officials lack the authority, time and reliable data to verify citizenship midstream.

The county also challenged the reliability of the federal list. In a preliminary review of 200 records with Los Angeles addresses, the county said 112 were tied to canceled or inactive voter registrations. Among records with meaningful birthplace data, 38.9% listed a U.S. birthplace, according to the county’s filing. Those figures describe the records reviewed, not citizenship determinations. The county also said 71.2% of the 200 people had no voting history in county files.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the order an early victory for the state. “The U.S. Constitution gives states and Congress — not the President or the Executive Branch — the power to determine the time, place, and manner of elections,” Bonta said in a statement. “The court’s order serves as an important step in our efforts to protect Californians’ right to vote and our state’s authority to run fair and secure elections.”

For now, the appeals court has shut down the emergency path, but not the case itself, which remains pending in district court.