A U.S. judge sharply rejected the request of the Trump administration on Wednesday, denying the Department of Justice's petition to temporarily halt the counting of mail-in ballots from the mid-term elections in California. The Department of Justice stated that these ballots came from over 20,000 registered voters who are likely not U.S. citizens.
This ruling means that as the midterms on November 3rd approach, Trump's efforts to push the federal government to play a greater role in the elections have suffered another setback. The Republican Party is embroiled in a fierce struggle to retain control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
U.S. District Judge David Carter ( David Carter ) made this decision on Tuesday after a hearing at the Los Angeles Federal Court regarding a temporary restraining order request filed by the Department of Justice. The request called for officials to be prohibited from counting any ballots that were marked by them as relevant.
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on October 15th, which represents a rare intervention in the voting process just weeks before the election and also indicates that the Trump administration is willing to challenge the results of the mid-term elections in court.
Carter wrote on Wednesday, "In the history of the United States, there has never been a time when the federal government has attempted to force state and local governments to abandon their own constitutional election procedures on the eve of an election and to submit to the will of the executive branch."
The judge, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, stated that the Department of Justice's request to exclude more than 20,000 ballots at the last moment violated "the constitutional principle that has long required states to control their own elections."
Carter warned that if the ruling favors the Trump administration, it would "cause chaos" and result in thousands of registered voters "possibly losing rights that several generations of Americans have worked hard to preserve."
He wrote, "The trust that has been damaged in our democratic system cannot be repaired. Once a single ballot is disputed, lasting harm has been done. If the executive branch can reject ballots on the basis of unproven allegations and threaten ongoing elections, then our democracy is in danger."
Subsequently, the Ministry of Justice promptly filed an appeal with the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bill Esayli, a lawyer from the Department of Justice ( Bill Essayli ), said in a statement: "Every day, more ballots are processed by elected officials. This ongoing emergency deprives American citizens of their right to vote by diluting that right."
California claims that its safeguards against non-citizen voting are very comprehensive. The state argues that the Department of Justice's claims rely on “suspicious data,” and that acting upon their demands could potentially deprive eligible voters of their right to vote.
California is the most populous state in the United States and also a stronghold for the Democratic Party. The state has the largest number of House of Representatives seats in the country, with a total of 52.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has made California a focal point of his large-scale immigration crackdown efforts, accusing the state of endangering public safety through its "sanctuary state" policy that limits cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Trump has also repeatedly insisted that states are not doing enough to prevent non-citizens from voting, claiming that this problem is widespread, despite multiple studies and state-level audits showing that such cases are rare.
Appeals court dismisses emergency request
Carter made the ruling two days ago. On Monday, a federal appeals court rejected an unusual emergency request from the Department of Justice to temporarily stop California from counting these ballots before Carter's ruling was issued.
The Ministry of Justice has not stated how many of the more than 20,000 people it identified in California have actually submitted their mail ballots.
The Department of Justice argued that a ban was necessary to ensure that California would not hinder the prosecution from enforcing a federal law. This law stipulates that it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.
However, Carter stated that the Department of Justice has never explained why counting ballots would hinder any prosecutions under that law, as states are not obligated to assist the federal government in investigating and prosecuting crimes.
In addition to California, the Trump administration also attempted to interfere in the elections of two other states with fiercely competitive races.
In Alaska, last week the Department of Justice requested a judge to stop the certification of election results on the grounds that if the incumbent Republican senator were to lose by a narrow margin, another candidate with a similar name on the ballot could cause confusion among voters. Alaska officials urged the case to be dismissed, stating that measures had been taken to distinguish between the two candidates on the ballots.
In Washington state, on Monday, the Department of Justice wrote to officials requesting that no ballots submitted by what it referred to as 400 voters who may not be citizens be counted. The chief election official of Washington state stated that the timing of this request indicates an attempt to cast unfounded doubts on the election results.
State records show that as of December 2025, California has 23 million registered voters, while as of 2024, Washington state had 5 million registered voters.
Advocates for voting rights say that the federal government's method of reviewing state voter lists to identify non-citizen voters may mistakenly label naturalized citizens as those who need to be removed from the voter rolls.
