The Radical Reading Room

A federal judge in California on Wednesday denied the Justice Department’s request for an emergency order requiring election officials to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots tied to registered voters the administration identified as suspected or likely noncitizens. The ruling rejected the requested intervention; it did not establish that those voters were ineligible.

The department sought to hold the flagged ballots apart while voters’ citizenship was verified. The reports describe the ballots as associated with registrations flagged by the government, not as ballots a court found unlawful. The requested order was a temporary restraining order, an emergency measure sought ahead of the election.

Judge David Carter said the request risked disrupting election procedures and potentially discounting votes cast by eligible citizens. In his written decision, he also cited the prospect of a chilling effect on election workers and voters. The reports characterize the citizenship concerns as claims or allegations, rather than verified determinations; Carter pointed to uncertainty and errors in the procedure used to identify the registrations.

Carter’s denial means the department did not obtain the emergency order requiring segregation of the ballots. He wrote that voters who meet California’s registration requirements should not be deprived of voting rights on the basis of unproven allegations. The decision addressed the request to separate the ballots, not the citizenship status of each voter. The underlying claims therefore remain unresolved by this ruling.