Ballots are scanned and sorted by machine at the Voter Registration Office in Kearny Mesa, California, on Friday, October 23, 2026, in San Diego, California.
Christian Carrion | San Diego Union-Tribune | Media News Group | Getty Images
A U.S. judge on Wednesday slammed the Trump administration, rejecting a Justice Department request to temporarily block California from counting midterm election mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters who the state claims are likely noncitizens.
The decision marks the latest setback for President Donald Trump’s efforts to strengthen the federal government’s role in elections ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and his Republican Party is locked in a close race to maintain majorities in both chambers of Congress.
U.S. District Judge David Carter issued the ruling Tuesday after a hearing in Los Angeles federal court over a Justice Department request for a temporary restraining order barring officials from counting flagged individuals’ ballots.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit, filed Oct. 15, is an unusual intervention in the voting process weeks before an election and signals the Trump administration’s willingness to challenge interim results in court.
“Never before in American history has the federal government attempted to force states and local governments on the eve of an election to abandon their own constitutional election procedures and submit to the wishes of the executive branch,” Carter said Wednesday.
The judge, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said the Justice Department’s last-minute request to exclude more than 20,000 votes violated “long-standing constitutional principles that require states to administer elections.”
Carter warned that a ruling in favor of the Trump administration “could cause havoc” and thousands of registered voters “could lose the rights that generations of Americans have fought to protect.”
“The decline in trust in democracy is irreversible,” Carter wrote. “Once the vote is segregated, lasting harm occurs. Our democracy is at risk if the administration is able to discount votes and threaten the continuation of elections based on unproven allegations.”
The Department of Justice promptly appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Every day, more ballots are being processed by election officials,” Justice Department attorney Bill Essairi said in a statement. “The ongoing emergency is disenfranchising the American people through dilution.”
California said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voters are strong. The department said the Justice Department’s claims rely on “questionable data” and that complying with the Justice Department’s request risks disenfranchising voters.
California is the most populous state in the United States and a stronghold of the Democratic Party. It has more seats in the House of Representatives (52) than any other state.
Since returning to the White House, President Trump has made California the focus of a sweeping immigration crackdown, accusing the state of undermining public safety through “sanctuary state” policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
President Trump has repeatedly argued that states are not doing enough to prevent non-citizens from voting, which he says is widespread despite multiple studies and state audits showing it is rare.
Court of Appeals rejects emergency request
Carter’s ruling comes two days after a federal appeals court on Monday rejected the Justice Department’s unusual emergency request for an appeals court to temporarily block vote counting in California before Carter has a chance to rule.
The Justice Department did not say how many of the more than 20,000 Californians it reported actually submitted mail-in ballots.
They argued that the restraining order was needed to prevent California from interfering with prosecutors’ ability to enforce federal laws that make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.
But Carter said states are not required to assist the federal government in investigating and prosecuting crimes, and the Justice Department has never explained why counting votes would preclude prosecution under the law.
In addition to California, the Trump administration is seeking to intervene in elections in two other highly competitive states.
In Alaska, the Justice Department last week asked a judge to block the certification of election results if a Republican incumbent senator lost by a narrow margin, saying the presence of another candidate with the same name on the ballot could confuse voters. Alaska asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that it took steps to distinguish between the two candidates on the ballot.
In Washington state, the Justice Department on Monday sent a letter to officials asking them not to count ballots received from 400 voters who may not be citizens. Washington’s top election official said the timing of the request showed it was intended to cast unfounded doubts about the election results.
According to state records, California will have 23 million registered voters as of December 2025, and Washington state will have 5 million registered voters in 2024.
Voting rights activists have expressed concern that the federal government’s method of scouring state voter rolls to identify noncitizen voters risks accidentally removing naturalized citizens from the rolls.
