Summary
- A district court judge in California has rejected DOJ’s request for a temporary restraining order to segregate 20,000 ballots from alleged “noncitizen” voters.
- The state, Los Angeles County, and city of Los Angeles argued the request was impossible to accomplish and potentially disenfranchising.
- DOJ later announced it is appealing the decision.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied the Justice Department’s request for a temporary restraining order against California on Wednesday evening, one day after a hearing in Los Angeles on a case involving tens of thousands of questionable ballots.
The legal fight began last week when the DOJ asked California to segregate an estimated 20,000 ballots belonging to people the government says are “likely” noncitizens. Carter, a Clinton appointee, delayed a ruling until Wednesday despite requests from attorneys on Tuesday, saying that the federal government’s request to “segregate and exclude over 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,” Carter wrote. “The Government’s Application for Temporary Restraining Order is DENIED.”
“Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred. If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” Carter added. “This Court declines to be a party to such process.”
In Tuesday’s hearing, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli argued the government’s case while state, county and intervening lawyers pushed back, with midterm voting already underway ahead of the Nov. 3 election. (RELATED: LA Registrar Says Citizenship Check Stops at Voter’s Word—Even After Federal Charges)
Essayli said the request was narrow: separate the ballots of roughly 20,000 people on the DOJ’s list so they can be reviewed before they are opened. Once a ballot is opened and detached from its identifying envelope, he argued, the vote becomes effectively untraceable.
Just last week, the DOJ announced that it had charged 28 foreign nationals in California from its compiled list of names for alleged election crimes. Essayli told Carter that the list of roughly 20,000 names came from the federal government cross-referencing a redacted version of California’s voter roll with federal databases, with assistance from USCIS.
The DOJ told the court on Tuesday it sought an expedited order because election officials were already processing returned ballots.
However, attorneys for the state and Los Angeles County called the federal government’s data collection unreliable, arguing that the DOJ’s proposed remedy was unworkable this late in the cycle.
Los Angeles County argued that more than 12,000 election workers are already aiding the election and that its software cannot be modified in time to flag the ballots. Any separation would therefore have to be done manually—an approach the county called impossible before Election Day or certification on Dec. 3.
State lawyers echoed the county, describing the request as “incredibly disruptive” and a “recipe for disenfranchisement.”
Additionally, a concern raised by intervenors, including NAACP lawyers, warned that the data-matching process could flag naturalized citizens and pointed to the 9th Circuit’s recent rejection of a similar emergency request.
Recess is over, and we’re back in court for the DOJ’s California Voter Citizenship Case.
Live updates from the rebuttal below
— Hailey Grace Gomez (@haileyggomez) October 27, 2026
During the hearing, Carter pressed attorneys on both sides whether there was precedent for segregating the ballots during an ongoing election, and described the proposed remedy as a “monumental” change. Carter, however, open to giving the DOJ time for further evidence and potential prosecutions past Election Day.
Along with Carter’s Wednesday decision, the Clinton-appointee notably decided on Tuesday’s hearing that he intends to appoint a special master to probe the DOJ’s process that led to the compiled list of 20,000 likely noncitizens.
Following the Wednesday evening decision, the DOJ has since appealed to the 9th circuit.
“The district court denied our emergency request to sequester ballots from 20,000 suspected noncitizens. Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials. This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution,” Essayli wrote in a statement.
“The Solicitor General authorized an immediate appeal. We filed our Notice of Appeal and will immediately seek an emergency order from the Ninth Circuit,” Essayli added.
