A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday, October 30, 2026, rejected — for the second time — the Justice Department's request to immediately stop California from counting ballots cast by more than 20,000 registered voters the federal government alleges are likely noncitizens, voting 2 to 1 against an injunction pending appeal. The ruling is the third straight court loss for the administration in this case, and it is the direct follow-up to the story Awaaz Punjab reported on October 28, when U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Los Angeles rejected the same demand at trial-court level: California election officials may keep processing and counting mail ballots under the state's own rules while the lawsuit continues, and no court has ordered a single one of the roughly 20,000 ballots set aside.

The fight began on October 13, when the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security sent California a list of more than 20,000 people they said were likely aliens registered to vote in the state, demanded that officials review the names and set aside their ballots, and gave the state 48 hours; California refused, and the federal government sued the state on October 15 — more than a week after mail ballots had already been sent to all registered voters on October 1, and with voting for the November 3 midterms already underway. The federal claim, in its own words in the earlier complaint, was that more than 20,000 people who are likely aliens are registered to vote in California. That is an allegation by the government, not a finding: no court in this litigation has found that any named person on the list is ineligible, and California officials have questioned the reliability of the federal data and the method used to build the list.

“We decline the United States's invitation to contravene the Elections Clause”

Writing for the majority, Judges Mark J. Bennett and Gabriel P. Sanchez held that the federal government had not identified authority to impose a new ballot-segregation process on California in the middle of an election. “We decline the United States's invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution's plain text,” the majority wrote. In the panel's fuller reasoning, as reported by MyNewsLA: “Because Congress has not exercised the specific power granted to it under the Elections Clause to override California's established laws for challenging ballots or removing ineligible voters, the State Legislature's statutory scheme remains the only method to do so.” Under that reading, challenges to a California voter's registration must follow California's own statutory process — the process the state says the federal demand tried to bypass.

The majority also pointed to timing and practicality. The request likely violates the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits systemic voter purges less than 90 days before election day, Judges Bennett and Sanchez wrote. And on the mechanics of segregation itself, they adopted the trial court's finding: “As the district court found — and we discern no clear error — there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system.” Mail ballots, once returned and processed, are separated from their identifying envelopes; that is why the Justice Department had argued the opposite urgency in its own filing, writing that “once a vote-by-mail ballot has been processed, it cannot be undone if it is later determined that the voter was ineligible.” The panel was not persuaded that this justified emergency federal intervention four days before Election Day.

The dissent: “a modest remedy”

Judge Patrick J. Bumatay dissented. He said the Justice Department had proposed “a modest remedy” to the prospect that noncitizens might vote illegally. “If California receives these suspect ballots, mixes them with legitimate ballots, and then processes them, the potentially illegal votes will be counted toward the election of our representatives — threatening to dilute the vote of eligible citizens,” he wrote. The two positions frame the choice the courts now face in case after case this cycle: the majority treats a late, system-wide federal intervention as itself the threat to a lawful election, while the dissent treats counting a ballot that is later shown to be ineligible — a step that cannot be undone — as the threat. Both sides agree on one fact: after Friday, the decision on any emergency order now lies, if the government seeks it, with the U.S. Supreme Court.

California's own officials had opposed the injunction on both law and logistics. Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan argued they lack the mechanisms and legal authority to freeze mail ballots until voters' citizenship can be verified, telling the court: “Voting is already underway in Los Angeles County. Ballots have been mailed, returned and processed, and election officials are working toward fixed deadlines for counting and certification.” Judge Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee who is overseeing United States of America v. State of California, had put the point more sharply in his 26-page order late on Wednesday, October 28: the federal request “would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens,” and, in Democracy Docket's account of that order, he warned the administration that threats against election workers must “cease immediately.” Carter previously dismissed a separate Justice Department attempt to force California to turn over its full voter registration list.

The same Friday in Washington: the list itself must be handed over by 5 p.m.

In a separate lawsuit in Washington, D.C. — Trujillo v. DHS, No. 1:26-cv-03072 — Chief Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg on Friday ordered the government, in a minute order issued after a hearing, to disclose the actual 20,000-person list to the plaintiffs by 5:00 p.m. on Friday: “By 5:00 p.m. today, the Government shall disclose to Plaintiffs the 20,000-person list at issue; Plaintiffs may file any Supplement regarding standing; and the Government shall have 24 hours thereafter to respond.” The plaintiffs are the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) and a California voter, challenging the administration's efforts to identify alleged illegal voters and send lists to county officials for immediate review; the order is aimed at uncovering whether any of CHIRLA's members or clients are on the list. “If you're a voter in California you have to wonder if you're on this list; will you ever be on this list?” Chad Dunn, legal director of the UCLA Voting Rights Project, representing the plaintiffs, said at the hearing, adding that CHIRLA has received calls from concerned citizens saying they will not vote, or asking to learn whether they are on the government's list: “It absolutely has a suppressive effect,” he said. Boasberg barred the plaintiffs from disseminating the list beyond their team, while allowing them to make statements and draw conclusions about whether members appear on it. Justice Department lawyer Ty Trejo told the court the government would not commit on whether more lists of suspected illegal voters would be sent — prompting Boasberg to tell government attorneys, “You could all sit down and have a nice weekend if you say you won't send lists” — while Trejo maintained the federal government has authority to enforce the laws if public officials “choose to put their heads in the sand,” said he believed no new lists would be created, and said the government reserved the right to update the lists.

Friday also brought the disclosure this desk reported as ordered on October 29 in the third related case, the Democratic groups' lawsuit (the DSCC case): the Justice Department's response, obtained by Democracy Docket, said the Department of Homeland Security had sent voter letters to California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the Justice Department itself had sent letters to California and Washington — five states contacted in all over the past four months — and that this month the government challenged over 20,000 voters in California and over 400 in Washington. The filing also said the department separately sent letters to election officials in all states on Thursday, October 29, reminding them of their obligation to preserve federal election records for 22 months after the election, pointing to penalties of up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine for willfully failing to comply. The response did not include the total number of voters challenged nationwide, broadly objected to the scope of the inquiry, said it had withheld informal oral communications not memorialised in any record, and maintained that the letters did not seek to bar people from voting, but asked officials “to work with DHS to verify whether individuals identified in a preliminary analysis are non-citizens who are registered to vote.” Boasberg plans to rule by Monday, November 2, on the Democratic groups' request for a temporary restraining order in that case. The plaintiffs there are the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, the Nevada State Democratic Party, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and a California voter who is a naturalized citizen, and they allege the pressure campaign violates the Voting Rights Act.

Why this lands hardest in places like the Central Valley

California is home to one of the largest Punjabi and Sikh communities in the United States — in Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Bakersfield, Yuba City and San Jose — and a very large share of that community's voters are naturalized citizens: people who took the citizenship oath, registered, and vote by mail in exactly the system at issue here. A federal list built by matching records, sent to counties days before an election, with a 48-hour demand attached, is therefore not an abstract Washington story for those readers. CHIRLA's report of phone calls from citizens afraid to vote is the practical effect the plaintiffs put before the court on Friday, and the courts' answers so far — Carter on Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit on Friday — have both rested in part on that chilling effect. California law requires voters to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury when they register, which is all federal election law requires at registration, and the state provides its own process to challenge a registration; the majority's point was that any challenge must use that process, not an emergency federal segregation order.

What happens next

The Justice Department is expected to appeal immediately to the U.S. Supreme Court, Democracy Docket reported; Election Law Blog, analysing the same ruling, expected the department to go to the Supreme Court next, where Justice Elena Kagan, as Circuit Justice for the Ninth Circuit, would set any briefing schedule — a schedule that could run past Election Day, while counties keep processing and tabulating ballots. In the trial court, Judge Carter has set an expedited hearing for November 13 in Los Angeles to explore the matter further, including calling witnesses to test the reliability of the methodology and data used to create the list of 20,000, and he noted election officials have until December 3 — the date by which results must be certified — to resolve the underlying issue, which he cited as a reason no emergency injunction was needed. In Washington, the Trujillo plaintiffs may file their standing supplement and the government then has 24 hours to respond, and in the DSCC case Boasberg's temporary-restraining-order ruling is due by Monday, November 2 — the eve of Election Day. Awaaz Punjab will report the Supreme Court filing, if it comes, and each of those rulings as the next verified developments, rather than treating Friday's emergency decisions as the end of the case.