Judge denies feds' request to segregate California ballots

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(The Center Square) - The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on Wednesday evening denied the Trump administration's request for a temporary restraining order to force the state to segregate mail-in ballots that the federal government thinks could have been submitted by noncitizens.

"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," Judge David Carter, a Clinton appointee, wrote in his ruling. "In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too."

The Santa Ana, Calif.-based judge said the federal government's request to segregate more than 20,000 ballots "violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections. If plaintiff’s last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve."

The Center Square reached out Wednesday evening to the White House, but did not get an immediate response.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said the ruling was an important victory for the right to vote. 

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said California would continue to follow state and federal law as it continued to hold free and fair elections.

Earlier on Wednesday, Bonta dismissed claims of mass voter fraud by the Trump administration.

Before Carter's ruling, Trump administration has maintained the validity of its noncitizens list.

“Twenty-eight people on that list have now been charged with federal crimes, including lying about their citizenship to register to vote,” DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told The Center Square in an email, referring to an Oct. 19 announcement of 11 arrests by the federal government. “California refused to look at the list. The Department will use every lawful tool to ensure that only American citizens vote in American elections.”

All 28 were charged with election-related crimes going back several years and, in some cases, several decades.

Bonta, meanwhile, told reporters Wednesday in San Francisco that it's business as usual for the state's general election on Nov. 3.

“Your fundamental voting rights remain protected under California law, and the rules for casting your ballots have not changed," Bonta said. "I will say that that is despite multiple efforts from the Trump administration to change those rights, to undermine your rights, including undermining your right to vote by mail.”

Bonta’s address comes after a late effort by the Trump administration to alter California’s voting process on the grounds of alleged voter fraud.

On Oct. 13, the U.S. Department of Justice told the California Secretary of State’s office that the state’s voter roll had roughly 20,000 “highly likely” noncitizen voters. State investigations into noncitizen voters have regularly shown nearly no cases. In one case, of 1.1 million voters in Nevada’s 2016 election, three individuals cast illegal noncitizen votes.

With early in-person voting and voting by mail already underway in California, the DOJ on Oct. 23 told California county election officials to set aside ballots cast by the suspected noncitizens, to be counted after the counties had verified whether the voters were citizens. A 48-hour period was set for counties to respond to the request.

The DOJ told The Center Square that the effort to separate ballots would not create confusion or distrust among voters.

“What undermines confidence is noncitizens voting,” said Pels. “Eligible citizens are not affected. We asked counties to set aside these ballots, not cancel them, until citizenship is confirmed.”

But speaking to The Center Square, county registrars across the Bay Area expressed doubt in the DOJ’s noncitizen voter list. They said they had no plan to set aside ballots or otherwise act on the DOJ’s list, adding that segregating ballots would likely put them in violation of state and federal election laws.

“Clearly it's an attempt to do two things – one, to cause public confidence in the democratic process to be eroded, a first step towards autocracy,” Napa County Registrar of Voters John Tuteur told The Center Square. “The second is to cause voter intimidation and try to prevent people from voting.”

Tuteur added that in his 29 years as Napa County registrar, he had found only one noncitizen voter, who was an election denier attempting to test the system.

“There are some people that won’t follow the rules, and they should be held accountable,” Bonta told reporters in reference to voter fraud. “It is rare, it is isolated, it happens in one-off instances, and those people should be held accountable. But there is no widespread voter fraud.”

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco dismissed an emergency appeal by the DOJ to force counties to set aside ballots cast by the alleged 20,000 noncitizen voters.  

In August, the Department of Homeland Security announced a list of 250,000 suspected noncitizen voters in Nevada, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In Nevada, an alleged 16,000 noncitizen voters was later reduced to just 185. Local election officials  later said all 185 listed individuals were citizens.

When asked about the noncitizen voter case in Nevada, Pels pushed back, saying the federal government had not yet verified Nevada’s assertion that the 185 individuals were citizens.

“Over this past year, we’ve watched the federal administration try to take control of how Americans vote,” said Bonta. “[To] threaten to send federal law enforcement to polling places, and spread misinformation meant to make people doubt our elections, meant to sew distrust in our elections.”