A federal judge refused to order California to set aside 20,000 ballots, citing a 'pattern of attempted election interference' by the Trump administration

**In summary** The Trump administration is demanding that almost every California county review its claims that noncitizens are registered to vote. Some of the information appears outdated, officials say. _Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up forWhatMatters to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State._ Election officials from across California questioned the accuracy of the federal government’s methodology for finding noncitizen voters after the Trump administration threatened them with criminal charges last week. The counties on Friday were given 48 hours to commit to working with federal authorities and to segregate ballots from a list of people federal authorities claimed were likely noncitizens. The letters said the list of names were from the same group of 20,000 people that the Trump administration flagged as noncitizens and then sued California over, demanding that state officials not count those ballots until they verify the voters’ citizenship. State officials have questioned the accuracy of the data and have refused to comply, saying the federal government risks disenfranchising thousands of voters in an attempt to illegally meddle in state elections. On Tuesday, a federal judge appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s legal arguments. Meanwhile, the letters counties received last week threatened potential criminal charges for election officials who “knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens.” Butte County Clerk-Recorder Keaton Denlay said he received one such letter and a demand to not count ballots from a list of 47 people. “Upon inspection of the list of names, it appeared to be a print screen of a poorly formatted excel spreadsheet with missing and jumbled information,” he said in a statement. Denlay said he reviewed the list and found that 32 of the people were not on Butte County’s active voter rolls and were not sent ballots. Seven others “did not have sufficient information … to match to our voter list with confidence” since the list only contained partial names, partial addresses, no dates of birth, no drivers’ license numbers or Social Security numbers. Six of the names belonged to people who may not be eligible to vote, but Denlay said California law requires those challenging a voter’s eligibility to have extraordinary levels of proof. “Given the overall inaccuracy of the list provided and its lack of specificity, I believe the Department of Justice has not met that burden,” Denlay said. “There will be no further action taken at this time.” Fresno County Registrar of Voters James Kus also received a letter, but he said he couldn’t tell how many ballots federal prosecutors wanted him to segregate, since the “not particularly legible” list was a printed sheet, in small font, and “not in a format that facilitates counting or reviewing.” He said the county already follows state and federal voter registration laws. “We will not be deviating from those legal requirements for this letter,” Kus told CalMatters in an email. Francisco Diaz, San Benito County registrar of voters, said his office received a demand with 33 names. A preliminary review found that some on the list weren’t registered to vote. 1. Just the right amount of news 2. Just the right amount of news 1. Get California’s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed. 2. Get California’s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed. Email address By clicking subscribe, you agree to the terms. Sign up for free Δ “Hand-delivering a letter via armed federal agents with an arbitrary 48-hour deadline does not circumvent state law,” Diaz said in a statement. “We will not be intimidated by agents with guns for simply doing our jobs, nor will we be rushed into compromising confidential voter data.” Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said he wasn’t notified of a letter alleging his county had 1,754 “likely aliens” on the voter rolls until after business hours on Friday. That’s because, he told reporters in an email, federal prosecutors had addressed and hand-delivered the letter not to Page but to Orange County Clerk-Recorder Hugh Nguyen, who handles such documents as marriage licenses and property deeds. On Monday, Page said federal agents delivered a correctly addressed letter to his office, along with a “data storage drive.” Page planned to respond by the Wednesday deadline, he said. The messy voter lists counties described fits a pattern, said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonprofit whose mission is to restore trust in the American election system He noted that the Department of Homeland Security recently claimed that Nevada had nearly 16,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls. DHS sent the state the names of only 185 voters. Nevada officials confirmed the voters had attested they were all U.S. citizens. Becker said the Trump administration has been making “broad political claims made with great fanfare” only to have them “fall apart as they’re subjected to scrutiny.” “I’m not entirely sure the DOJ wants to get into court and defend its evidentiary claims because I think they would fall apart, just as we’ve seen in other states,” said Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department attorney. In federal court on Tuesday, Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, insisted the federal list of 20,000 people was accurate. “We stand by the reliability of the information,” he said. “We take our obligations and ethics very seriously.” ## READ NEXT ### Judge says Trump could disenfranchise voters in purge of noncitizens from election rolls October 27, 2026October 27, 2026 ### ‘Borders on the absurd.’ California fights Trump lawsuit to set aside 20,000 ballots October 20, 2026October 20, 2026 Read more from CalMatters Text Get breaking news on your phone. Download Keep up with the latest via our app. Sign up Receive free updates in your inbox. ## Nonpartisan, independent California news for all We’re CalMatters, your nonprofit and nonpartisan news guide. Our journalists are here to empower you and our mission continues to be essential. * **We are independent and nonpartisan.** Our trustworthy journalism is free from partisan politics, free from corporate influence and actually free for all Californians. * **We are focused on California issues.** From the environment to homelessness, economy and more, we publish the unfettered truth to keep you informed. * **We hold people in power accountable.** We probe and reveal the actions and inactions of powerful people and institutions, and the consequences that follow. But we can’t keep doing this without support from readers like you. Please give what you can today. **********Every gift helps.********** DONATE

**In summary** A federal judge is unlikely to issue a final ruling on the Trump administration’s claim that noncitizens are registered to vote in California until after Election Day. _Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up forWhatMatters to receive the latest news and commentary on the most important issues in the Golden State._ Saying he had concerns it could disenfranchise voters during the midterm election, a federal judge on Tuesday seemed skeptical of the Trump administration’s demands that California election officials set aside 20,000 ballots that it claimed could have been mailed to noncitizens. “Some of these may be very valid voters, and that’s my concern about disenfranchisement,” said U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Carter said he would issue an order by Wednesday, but he told the courtroom he was likely going to appoint a special master to weigh the evidence both sides present at a hearing in two weeks. That means his final order might not come until after the election. He said he didn’t want to “just wing it with a ruling” based on last-minute evidence the federal government submitted to the court the night before Tuesday’s hearing. Carter also suggested that his order would direct federal authorities to stop telling election officials that they could face criminal charges if they didn’t comply with the Trump administration’s demands. The Trump administration on Friday sent letters to California election officials telling them to set aside ballots from suspected noncitizens, and threatened them with criminal charges if they allowed those people to vote. “This court believes it would be wise that any threats to state or county (election) employees cease immediately,” Carter told the courtroom. Carter’s remarks point to yet another likely legal blow to the Trump administration as it seeks to validate President Donald Trump’s longstanding claims of widespread election fraud favoring Democrats. Experts and election officials say those claims are meritless. Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, acknowledged that the government’s list of 20,000 people may contain citizens, but he said the possibility that noncitizens were voting illegally was too great a threat. “I would ask the state how many illegal votes is OK for them?” Essayli said. “It cannot be that the state has a right to facilitate the counting and tabulation of noncitizen votes. There’s no right to that.” The Trump administration sued California earlier this month saying election officials refused to comply with a 48-hour federal deadline to set aside the ballots of up to 20,000 people the administration had flagged as possible noncitizens until the voters’ citizenship could be verified. The administration sought a temporary restraining order forcing the state to comply. California officials argued there was no way they could since they were busy overseeing the election. They also called the demand an illegal effort to meddle in state-run elections that could disenfranchise legal voters. “I just want to make sure the stakes are clear: that what we’re talking about is stripping voting rights from thousands of people until proven otherwise,” said Anne Bellows, a deputy attorney general with the California Department of Justice. ## Judge points to immigrant arrests State and county officials also have questioned the methodology the federal government used to flag possible noncitizens. In a court filing, Los Angeles County officials said that a sampling of 200 names from the federal list, which included people from all over California, found that many of them were likely citizens and that most had not voted before and were not sent ballots. Federal investigators re-reviewed those 200 names and found that only four were citizens, Essayli told the judge. “We stand by the reliability of the information,” he said. “We take our obligations and ethics very seriously.” 1. Just the right amount of news 2. Just the right amount of news 1. Get California’s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed. 2. Get California’s most essential headlines without feeling overwhelmed. Email address By clicking subscribe, you agree to the terms. Sign up for free Δ Carter noted that, last week, federal prosecutors charged 28 California green card holders for allegedly voting or registering to vote in violation of laws prohibiting noncitizens from participating in elections. He said that if noncitizens really are voting in as large of numbers as the Trump administration claims, there’s nothing stopping federal prosecutors from finding them and charging them without the risk of blocking legal voters from having their ballots counted. “If it’s this big, you’ve got a remedy for goodness sakes,” Carter told Essayli. “Go out and indict.” After the hearing, Essayli said from the courthouse steps that the state could “resolve this today.” “They just seem disinterested in getting to the bottom of this,” Essayli said, noting that the number of ballots in question could tip smaller elections. “A lot of elections are decided by tens of votes or hundreds of votes.” ## 9th Circuit ruled against Trump The hearing came a day after two judges on a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an emergency effort from the Trump administration to bypass Carter’s courtroom. The Trump administration sought an emergency order from the appellate court, claiming that Carter didn’t schedule a hearing fast enough. The two judges said prosecutors’ arguments about urgency didn’t hold up. Their ruling noted that the prosecutors have been making claims about illegal voters on California’s voter rolls since July and could have taken action any time since, so their “claimed emergency, at least in part, is a self-constructed one.” Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, noted in a concurring opinion that he had “serious doubts” about the federal government’s claims that prosecutors could “superintend or intervene in a state’s election administration.” He wrote that Congress granted states — not the executive branch — authority over elections. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Patrick Bumatay, another Trump appointee, argued that “federal law precludes California from commingling ballots likely cast by aliens with legitimate ballots, because it encourages and induces illegal voting.” “Stopping that practice for those identified as likely noncitizens is the bare minimum,” Bumatay wrote. ## READ NEXT ### The final stretch: Catch up on what’s happened in the California governor’s race so far October 27, 2026 ### Will California Republicans block Democrats from Congress if they win the midterms? October 27, 2026 Read more from CalMatters Text Get breaking news on your phone. Download Keep up with the latest via our app. Sign up Receive free updates in your inbox. ## Nonpartisan, independent California news for all We’re CalMatters, your nonprofit and nonpartisan news guide. Our journalists are here to empower you and our mission continues to be essential. * **We are independent and nonpartisan.** Our trustworthy journalism is free from partisan politics, free from corporate influence and actually free for all Californians. * **We are focused on California issues.** From the environment to homelessness, economy and more, we publish the unfettered truth to keep you informed. * **We hold people in power accountable.** We probe and reveal the actions and inactions of powerful people and institutions, and the consequences that follow. But we can’t keep doing this without support from readers like you. Please give what you can today. **********Every gift helps.********** DONATE

The United States has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an institution, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowing on Friday to “dismantle the ICC, brick by brick” unless it ends what Washington regards as a “threat” to its citizens.

Attached: 1 image Laugh, buuuuut..... #SMBC #TurdReich #USPol

Filmmaker Sheikh, acclaimed for 'Saffron Kingdom', faces legal proceedings after US immigration authorities detained him at Virginia's Dulles airport following a flight from California, campaigners say.