Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Stop Demanding California Segregate Ballots of Suspected Noncitizen Voters
A U.S. judge ordered the Trump administration on Monday to stop demanding that California election officials segregate ballots cast by people on its lists of suspected noncitizens, finding the lists flawed and many people on them wrongly listed, Reuters reported - a ruling that lands a day before the midterm elections.
The election-intervention fight this desk has covered all day has a new ruling, and it went against the administration. A U.S. judge ordered the Trump administration on Monday to stop demanding that California election officials segregate ballots cast by people on its lists of suspected noncitizens, Reuters reported in a file published Monday afternoon and opened directly by the Politics Desk in this supplemental pass.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who is based in Washington and was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, found that the lists the administration had compiled were flawed, and included many people who were wrongly listed as noncitizens, Reuters reported. “California may decide for itself what procedures to use for verifying the citizenship of registered voters,” Boasberg wrote. “The Executive Branch lacks authority to unilaterally impose its preferred procedures.”
The ruling comes a day before the November 3 midterm elections, with President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans battling to maintain majorities in both houses of Congress, Reuters noted. It is the latest courtroom step in the California case inside the Justice Department's broader intervention account the desk published this morning (SQ-20261102-034) - the department had sought to set aside mail ballots from about 20,000 California voters it alleged are likely noncitizens, and courts have now rejected its lawsuits in both California and Alaska.
Florida administers its own elections and no order in this case names Florida or Duval County; Duval polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. at assigned precincts, and the ruling changes nothing about how a Jacksonville ballot is cast or counted. Its Jacksonville relevance is the principle it states on Election Day eve - that citizenship-verification procedures for registered voters are the state's to set - in the same federal-versus-state election fight Florida voters have watched all cycle. Standards Editor JAX-006 passed this file.
