US Judge Rejects Trump Administration’s Bid to Seize 20,000 California Ballots

A US federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to block more than 20,000 California ballots over allegations that the voters might not be US citizens, condemning the move as brazen pre-election interference.

The ruling comes ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, in which President Donald Trump’s Republican Party faces the risk of losing control of Congress. The case has intensified concerns over federal efforts to challenge election procedures and cast doubt on the integrity of the voting process.

Democratic Party leaders sued the Trump administration, accusing Republicans of using threats and intimidation against state and local officials before the election.

US District Judge David O. Carter sided with California’s Democratic-led government, refusing to order the seizure of the ballots.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote in his decision.

“Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest favors their protection,” he added.

Carter said voters already registered in California should not be stripped of their fundamental voting rights based on unsubstantiated allegations arising from procedures marked by uncertainty and errors.

The Justice Department had initially accused California of having approximately 190,000 potentially ineligible voters on its rolls. It later revised the figure to around 20,000 and filed an emergency lawsuit roughly 10 days ago, after early voting had begun, seeking to prevent the state from sending ballots to those individuals.

A similar controversy unfolded in neighboring Nevada, where the administration’s allegations failed to hold up under scrutiny. The Trump administration initially identified 16,000 suspected non-citizen voters in the state, but verification procedures reduced the figure to 185 before the final number fell to zero.

Carter described the Justice Department’s actions as part of a wider pattern of federal attempts to interfere in elections.

“The DOJ’s actions are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials,” he wrote.

The dispute comes amid months of claims by Trump, who has never acknowledged his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, that fraud will affect this year’s midterms.

However, studies have repeatedly found that voter fraud is rare in the United States and occurs on a scale too small to influence election outcomes.