Justice Department Drops Suit Over 20,000 California Ballots

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion on Friday to drop its lawsuit challenging approximately 20,000 ballots in California. The federal case sought to prevent state officials from counting these votes, which the Justice Department claimed were sent to individuals who are not U.S. citizens. The filing arrived days after Republican candidates suffered major defeats in the midterm elections.

The request for dismissal was submitted about one week before a scheduled hearing. At that hearing, an independent court expert was set to evaluate the accuracy of the list of alleged non-citizen voters. Federal officials argued that the legal remedy sought by the government is no longer available. The motion stated that California would have irreversibly mixed the questioned ballots with legally cast votes by the time of the next hearing.

State election officials previously indicated that the federal list was outdated and included legitimate voters. Judge David O. Carter, who presides over the case, had already rejected the federal government's initial request. Carter, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, issued a ruling that warned attempting to separate ballots at this late stage could deny citizens their right to vote. He also cautioned that the measure could cause havoc in the midterm elections.

The lawsuit was filed in mid-October, shortly after ballots were mailed to 23 million registered voters in California. At that time, hundreds of thousands of votes had already been processed. Once a ballot is processed, it is fully anonymized, making it impossible to link the vote to a specific voter identity. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, had previously argued that the suit would lose relevance after Election Day because separating the ballots would no longer be feasible.

Essayli stated that the goal was to protect election integrity so that illegal voting would not affect future contests. He told reporters outside the court a week before the election that officials wanted to stop illegal voting rather than pursue it afterward. The Justice Department continues to litigate with immigrant rights and voting rights groups. These organizations seek to limit the use of the government's list of presumed non-citizens.

The federal case was part of the Trump administration's efforts to exert control over state-run elections across the country. The president has claimed widespread illegal voter participation without presenting evidence. In another contested suit in Alaska, the Justice Department tried to block a Democratic Senate candidate's victory. A federal judge quickly dismissed that case, and the administration is currently appealing the decision.

As of early Friday, California had processed roughly 9 million ballots. State election officials reported that about 5 million ballots remained to be counted. In recent weeks, California prosecutors arrested more than 30 non-citizens accused of registering illegally to vote. Some of those individuals also face charges for voting in previous elections. County election officials received subpoenas to testify before grand juries during the week before the election.

The Central District of California federal prosecutors sent all media inquiries to the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. The department did not respond to a request for comments sent by email on Friday night. The independent court expert designated by Judge Carter in late October was also tasked with determining if California had a mechanism to identify and separate the questioned ballots.