A three-judge federal panel has refused to fast-track the Donald Trump administration’s push to stop California from tallying certain mail ballots. This move poses a legal loss for Trump that leaves election officials free to keep processing votes as the midterm elections approach.
Why the 9th Circuit dismissed the administration’s emergency appeal
On Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco turned down the administration’s emergency appeal, which sought to prevent California from counting mail ballots from 20,000 registered voters the government says are noncitizens. The court split 2-1, concluding it had no jurisdiction and granting Los Angeles County’s motion to dismiss.
Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez formed the majority. Bennett owes his seat to Donald Trump; Sanchez was appointed by former president Joe Biden. The pair reasoned that the appellate court could not weigh in on the Department of Justice’s suit while the district court had yet to act on it.
Additionally, the majority stated that the United States “failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application for a Temporary Restraining Order,” according to Politico. They further added that the government’s “claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one.”
The panel also criticized the timing of the Justice Department’s filing, which came just three weeks before the midterms, with the temporary restraining order request following only last week as ballots were already being counted. However, Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, writing that he would have granted the request.
The Trump appointee maintained that a federal criminal statute prohibiting noncitizen voting would probably take precedence over California’s election rules. Additionally, that inaction risked allowing noncitizen votes to count in the midterms.
Bennett answered observing that the administration “has offered no workable plan of any kind as to how the remedy it seeks could be accomplished in practice without potential catastrophic consequences to California’s ongoing election.”
The case now moves to a Tuesday hearing in U.S. District Court in California.
