A federal judge in Los Angeles appeared deeply skeptical on Tuesday, October 27, of the U.S. Justice Department's request to stop California from counting mail ballots cast for the November 3 midterm elections by more than 20,000 registered voters whom the Trump administration alleges are noncitizens. U.S. District Judge David Carter heard arguments in a packed election fight that has put county registrars, naturalized citizens and the federal government on a collision course one week before Election Day, with early voting already underway in California and several other states.

Source: Reuters

The Justice Department is asking the court for a temporary order barring officials from counting any ballots from the individuals the administration has flagged. It is a rare intervention by the department in the voting process weeks before a midterm election in which President Donald Trump's Republican Party is locked in a tight battle to retain control of both houses of Congress. The department has not indicated how many of the more than 20,000 people it flagged in California had actually submitted a mail ballot.

Source: Reuters

"Go out and indict": the judge's answer in court

During the hearing, Judge Carter said he was concerned the request to sequester ballots could disenfranchise and confuse legitimate voters, calling it a “monumental change” to election procedures when voting was already underway. He responded that the “traditional remedy” for voter fraud was a criminal indictment, and said unlawfully cast ballots can be removed in the weeks after Election Day, prior to certification of the official results. “You've got a remedy, for goodness sake,” the judge told the prosecutor. “Go out and indict.”

Source: Reuters

Carter also addressed the pressure county workers say they are under. The Justice Department on October 16 warned California election officials they could face criminal liability if they counted ballots from voters the administration had flagged as potential noncitizens. “This court believes that it would be wise that any threats to state and county election employees cease immediately,” Carter told government lawyers during Tuesday's hearing.

Source: Reuters

For the federal government, Justice Department lawyer Bilal Essayli said during the hearing that the government had made a narrow request intended to ensure election integrity. It is illegal for noncitizens to register to vote or cast a ballot in a federal election, and department officials have argued that even a small number of illegal votes can dilute lawful votes and undermine confidence in elections.

Source: Reuters

For California, lawyer Anne Bellows said during Tuesday's hearing that the Justice Department's assertions relied on “mysterious database methods” and that complying with its demands would risk disenfranchising eligible voters. California has said the state's safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust. “The Supreme Court has reiterated time and again that, as an election is close at hand, federal courts should not interfere to change the rules under which that election is held,” Bellows added. “This applies with even more force when the election is ongoing.” The U.S. Constitution assigns individual states the responsibility of administering elections, though the federal government has some oversight role.

Source: Reuters

Background: letters, a 48-hour deadline and a lawsuit filed on October 15

The courtroom fight is the latest escalation in a legal battle that has been building for weeks. The federal government sued on October 15, roughly three weeks before the elections, asking a judge to bar the state from counting mail-in ballots from people the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens. Letters sent to county registrars on a Friday then demanded that they sequester ballots the federal government believes were sent to noncitizen voters, asked for sensitive information including Social Security numbers on roughly 20,000 voters, set a 48-hour deadline to provide information, and warned that legal action could be taken against any official who knowingly counted a noncitizen's vote, the Associated Press reported.

Source: Associated Press

Local officials described the human side of that deadline to the AP. John Tuteur, the registrar of voters for Napa County in California's wine country, said two uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers delivered a letter to his office late on Friday afternoon listing 42 people the federal government accused of being noncitizens illegally registered to vote. There are roughly 86,000 people registered to vote across the county of over 130,000 people, Tuteur said, and approximately 11,000 people had already cast a mail-in ballot as of Friday. In larger Los Angeles County, that number had already reached over 331,000 counted mail-in votes. “All of this is simply meant to raise huge doubts about the integrity of this election,” Tuteur said. “We're not changing anything we're doing. We're proceeding with the election.” He added that his employees and relatives were worried about what could come next: “My family's upset, worried about what's going to happen to me.” In rural Amador County, the letter to Clerk-Recorder Kim Grady's office listed four people allegedly illegally registered, and Grady was waiting for more guidance from the state, unsure whether she would get clarity before the deadline.

Source: Associated Press

The accuracy of the federal list is itself in dispute. The California attorney general's office said the letters contained errors — for example, Mendocino County officials received a list of people who were not residents there, according to the state's court filing. Los Angeles County officials, who are named as defendants in the federal lawsuit, reported a preliminary analysis of 200 names from the statewide list of 20,000: more than 40% had canceled registrations, more than 70% of that sample had no voting history whatsoever, and nearly 4 in 10 were born in the United States, according to a court filing from county officials. Kristin B. Connelly, the Contra Costa County clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, told the AP: “I expect this accusation to fall apart like we saw recently in Nevada,” referring to remarks in July claiming the neighboring state had 1,500 noncitizen voters on its rolls — after the administration was asked to identify them, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero, the AP reported.

Source: Associated Press

The Justice Department says it is not seeking a purge. Department spokeswoman Kiersten Pels emphasized in a statement that the department is explicitly “not requesting a purge, cancellation of registrations, or any programmatic action,” and that federal officials are asking for collaboration to “ensure the most secure election in California history.” The letters followed a statewide sweep by federal authorities on a Monday in which 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote; some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork, charges that could lead to years in prison. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said clerks who did not comply could face prosecution as well: “The letters speak for themselves. Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy.” Those 28 cases are allegations in criminal charges, not convictions.

Source: Associated Press

Why this matters — including for Punjabi and other naturalized-citizen voters

California is the most populous U.S. state and a Democratic stronghold, and it is home to one of the largest Punjabi and South Asian diaspora communities in America, concentrated in the Central Valley, Sacramento region, the Bay Area and Southern California. Voting-rights activists have expressed concern that the federal government's methods for scrutinizing state voter lists to identify noncitizen voters risk wrongly flagging naturalized citizens for removal from the rolls — a concern county officials linked directly to the list errors described in court filings. For a naturalized citizen who has already mailed a ballot, the practical question in this case is whether that ballot is counted on the normal schedule, set aside while the voter's status is rechecked, or challenged after Election Day through the indictment and certification process the judge described. Noncitizen voting is illegal, and it is also, by the record cited in court reporting, rare: Reuters noted that President Trump has repeatedly insisted states are not doing enough to stop it, saying it is widespread despite multiple studies and state audits showing it is rare, and the AP cited an example from Minnesota, where Attorney General Todd Blanche announced charges against 10 people alleged to have voted illegally over the last three elections, a period in which more than 8 million ballots were cast in that state.

Source: Reuters / Associated Press

The California hearing was not the federal government's only election intervention this week. On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected an unusual emergency request by the Justice Department asking the appeals court to temporarily block California from counting the ballots before Judge Carter had the chance to rule. Apart from California, the administration has sought to intervene in elections in two states that are home to competitive races: in Alaska, the Justice Department last week asked a judge to prevent certification of election results if the Republican incumbent senator loses by a slim margin, alleging that another candidate with a similar name on the ballot could confuse voters — Alaska has urged that the case be dismissed, arguing it has taken steps to distinguish the two candidates. In Washington state, the Justice Department on Monday sent a letter asking officials not to count any ballots received from 400 voters it said may not be citizens; Washington's top elections official said the timing of the request indicated it was intended to cast unfounded suspicion on election results. Washington had 5 million registered voters as of 2024, state records show.

Source: Reuters

What happens next

Judge Carter said he would issue a ruling on Wednesday, October 28, on the Justice Department's request for a temporary order barring officials from counting any ballots from the individuals the administration has flagged. Until that ruling, county registrars who spoke to the AP said they have already started to count ballots that have trickled in from the state's 23 million registered voters and are proceeding with the election. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. If the request is denied, the judge's own framing points to the path he described in court: individual criminal indictments where the government believes a specific person voted unlawfully, and removal of unlawfully cast ballots in the weeks after Election Day, prior to certification of the official results. If the request is granted, counties would have to change procedures mid-count in what the judge called a “monumental change” — the very outcome California's lawyers warned would confuse and potentially disenfranchise legitimate voters. Awaaz Punjab will update this story when the ruling is issued.