Federal judge rejects DOJ bid to segregate 20,000 California ballots

A federal judge Wednesday rejected the Trump administration's emergency request to segregate more than 20,000 California mail-in ballots belonging to suspected noncitizens, ruling that the Justice Department lacked credible evidence to justify disrupting an election already underway.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California denied the government's application for a temporary restraining order, finding that its demands threatened to disenfranchise eligible voters and improperly intruded on state authority over 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," Carter wrote in his 26-page ruling.

The Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan on Oct. 15 after they refused demands to identify and set aside ballots associated with a federal list of suspected noncitizens.

The government argued that processing those ballots interfered with enforcement of a federal statute prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Carter rejected that argument, finding that the statute criminalizes unlawful voting but does not authorize federal officials to dictate how states administer elections.

"Refusing to help [the federal government] is not the same as impeding it," Carter wrote, quoting 9th Circuit precedent.

The judge also questioned the reliability of the government's voter list, compiled by matching purchased registration data against federal immigration records and information from LexisNexis. He noted that federal officials initially identified nearly 191,000 suspected noncitizens on California voter rolls before narrowing their allegations to approximately 20,000, without adequately explaining the methodology or providing error rates.

Carter also cited a similar effort in Nevada, where 185 voters ultimately identified by federal authorities as suspected noncitizens were determined by state officials to be U.S. citizens.

The requested restrictions would likely violate federal election laws, including the National Voter Registration Act's prohibition on systematic voter removals within 90 days of a federal election, Carter found. He also criticized federal officials for threatening election workers with criminal scrutiny if they failed to comply.

"These threats must stop," Carter wrote.

The judge concluded that the government could prosecute individuals suspected of voting illegally but could not compel California to overhaul its election procedures days before Nov. 3.

"The Executive Branch cannot replace the remedy Congress carefully enacted with its own unlawful and unconstitutional solution instead," he wrote. United States v. California, 2:26-cv-12025 (C.D. Cal., filed Oct. 15, 2026).

A Justice Department spokesperson could not be reached as of press time about whether it would appeal Carter's ruling, either back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A divided 9th Circuit panel on Monday sent the Trump administration lawsuit seeking to order election officials to segregate ballots they claim are likely from noncitizens back to Carter.