DOJ Abandons Bid to Set Aside Roughly 20,000 California Ballots/ NEWSLOOKS/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ The Justice Department requested dismissal of its lawsuit seeking to prevent California from counting roughly 20,000 disputed ballots pending citizenship checks. California officials challenged the accuracy of the federal voter list, while a judge warned that separating ballots could disenfranchise eligible citizens. The department said it would continue pursuing other election-related litigation and prosecutions.
Quick Look
- Dismissal requested: DOJ moved Friday to voluntarily end its ballot-separation lawsuit.
- Disputed list: Federal officials alleged the affected voters were noncitizens; California said the list included eligible voters.
- Court rejection: Judge David O. Carter previously denied the requested restrictions.
- Review pending: A special master had been scheduled to examine the list’s accuracy and whether ballots could be separated.
- Counting underway: California had processed roughly 9 million ballots, with nearly 5 million remaining as of Friday morning.
- Other cases continue: DOJ backed a separate lawsuit challenging California’s voter-roll maintenance.
- Evidence distinction: Arrests over alleged unlawful registration do not establish the accuracy of the broader federal list.
Deep Look
Justice Department Requests Dismissal of Ballot Lawsuit
LOS ANGELES — The Justice Department asked Friday to dismiss its lawsuit seeking to force California to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots while federal officials investigated allegations that the voters were not U.S. citizens.
The request came days after the midterm elections and approximately a week before a hearing at which a court-appointed special master was scheduled to examine the accuracy of the government’s list.
California officials have said the list is outdated and includes legitimate voters.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter previously rejected the federal government’s requested restrictions, warning that imposing them late in the election could disenfranchise citizens and “wreak havoc” on voting.
The filing seeks voluntary dismissal; the supplied report did not state that the court had already granted it.
DOJ Says Requested Relief Is No Longer Available
In its motion, the department argued that California would have already “commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones” by the time of the upcoming hearing.
“The relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available—rendering voluntary dismissal necessary,” the motion stated.
California had processed approximately 9 million ballots as of early Friday, with nearly 5 million still to count, according to state election officials.
Once processed, ballots are anonymized, preventing them from being linked back to individual voters.
The lawsuit was filed in mid-October, after ballots had been mailed to California’s 23 million registered voters and hundreds of thousands had already been processed.
Accuracy of Federal Voter List Remains Disputed
The case formed part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to expand federal involvement in state election administration.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly alleged widespread noncitizen voting without providing evidence supporting that claim. Available data indicates that such voting is exceedingly rare.
California challenged the federal list’s reliability, and Carter raised similar concerns when denying the request to separate ballots.
He appointed a special master in late October to review the list and assess whether election officials had a workable method of identifying and separating the affected ballots.
The dismissal request came before that scheduled review.
Department Continues Other Election Cases
DOJ said Friday that it would continue pursuing suspected election-law violations through other litigation and prosecutions.
It also filed a motion supporting a separate lawsuit, brought in May, alleging that California failed to adequately remove ineligible voters from its registration rolls.
Top Los Angeles prosecutor Bill Essayli said the department would “pursue every available civil and criminal remedy to ensure that only eligible American citizens vote in American elections.”
The department remains involved in litigation with immigrant- and voting-rights organizations challenging its use of suspected-noncitizen lists.
Federal Officials Repeat Allegations Despite Dispute
Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels accused California of refusing to cooperate with the federal request and asserted that “thousands of likely noncitizens remain on California’s voter rolls and voted in the 2026 elections.”
Those assertions remain disputed and were not established by the dismissal filing.
Prosecutors have brought cases against more than 30 noncitizens accused of unlawfully registering to vote in California. Some were also accused of voting in previous elections.
Those individual allegations do not establish that the roughly 20,000 people on the federal list were ineligible or that they cast ballots unlawfully.
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