Court Denies White House Bid to Toss California Ballots
The Trump administration’s bid to force California to toss the ballots of some 20,000 voters it unsubstantially claimed were “likely noncitizens” was struck down on Wednesday by a California district court amid long-standing apprehension over federal enforcement impeding elections. “Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought […]
A California district court ruled on Wednesday against the Trump administration's attempt to have the state discard ballots of approximately 20,000 voters it alleged were "likely noncitizens." In a 26-page decision, Judge David Carter emphasized that the federal government had never before sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own election procedures just before an election.
The lawsuit was part of "Operation Protect the Vote," a Justice Department initiative aimed at combating fraud and protecting electoral integrity. Federal prosecutors in California charged 28 individuals and arrested at least 11 from the list of 20,000, alleging they all registered or voted illegally. Judge Carter stated that the federal government's demands displayed a pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials.
Virginia Kase Solomón, the CEO of Common Cause, called it a "last-ditch attempt by the Trump administration to use faulty, junk data to deprive eligible voters of their rights and manufacture a non-existent crisis." The Justice Department claimed the list was compiled by cross-referencing partial California voter rolls with a federally assigned immigration system. However, the appeal to the Ninth Circuit was filed shortly after the ruling.
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