Judge in L.A. weighs feds’ request to block 20,000 California votes with skepticism
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Judge → weigh → skepticism
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- Attorneys for the state and L.A. County said the administration offered no reliable evidence that the voters are noncitizens and no workable way to comply during an ongoing election.
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voters → click → election
First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli said he had made it ‘abundantly clear that American voters are being disenfranchised in real time.’
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voters → say → time
A federal judge on Tuesday seemed skeptical of a Trump administration request to immediately block California officials from counting about 20,000 ballots from voters whose citizenship the administration questions, but said he would not issue a ruling until Wednesday.
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he → seem → Wednesday
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter questioned how the administration had derived its list of suspect voters, worried about disenfranchising eligible voters, said the demands would represent a “monumental change” to California elections and suggested federal prosecutors bringing the case had other means of holding illegal voters accountable.
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prosecutors → question → voters
But just one day after a federal appeals court rejected the same request, Carter said at the conclusion of a 3½-hour hearing in Los Angeles that he needed more time to rule — except on one related issue.
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he → reject → issue
“This court believes it would be wise — that it would be wise — that any threats to state and county elected employees cease immediately,” he said — a clear reference to federal authorities threatening elections officials with criminal penalties if they count any of the flagged ballots.
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they → believe → ballots
The decision clears the way for the lower court to proceed with hearing the case.
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court → clear → case
A hearing is scheduled Tuesday afternoon before Judge David O. Carter in Los Angeles.
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hearing → schedule → Angeles
After the hearing, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, said he had made it “abundantly clear that American voters are being disenfranchised in real time,” and that the administration will wait to see what Carter says Wednesday but was likely to appeal the matter back up to the appellate court.
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Carter → argue → court
He also denied threatening state officials, despite the Justice Department having sent formal letters to elections officials statewide last week warning them of criminal punishments, and Essayli reiterated that position Tuesday.
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Essayli → deny → position
Carter’s hearing came after Monday’s decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — the reverse of what’s normal — because Justice Department attorneys had tried to go over Carter’s head after he didn’t acquiesce to a deadline they’d set for him to rule on their request for a temporary restraining order against the state last week.
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him → come → state
However, when the three-judge appellate panel — composed of two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — ruled 2-1 Monday that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case given Carter hadn’t yet had the chance, the case returned to Carter’s courtroom.
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case → compose → courtroom
And there, Carter — an appointee of President Clinton — seemed loathe to rush to judgment, despite the Trump administration’s claims of urgency.
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Carter → seem → urgency
He said the administration’s method for arriving at its list of potential noncitizen voters was unclear and that he would like to develop the record further, including by bringing in an expert for the court.
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he → say → court
How was this derived?” he said.
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he → derive → ?
He also seemed unmoved by the Justice Department’s argument that the ballots themselves must be segregated immediately to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted, and more focused on whether noncitizens who illegally vote can be identified and held accountable while avoiding disenfranchising legitimate voters in the process.
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who → seem → process
For those who do vote illegally, “you’ve got a remedy, for goodness sakes,” he told Essayli.
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he → vote → Essayli
The Justice Department sued California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan on Oct. 15, two days after Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter gave Weber and Logan 48 hours to set aside the ballots for the 20,000 flagged voters, whom McCotter described as “likely noncitizens.”
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McCotter → sue → noncitizens
During the hearing, Essayli argued on behalf of the Trump administration that its demands on California and L.A. County were not onerous, could easily be complied with and do not call for ballots to not be counted.
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ballots → argue → California
Essayli said the federal government was in court “on a very narrow request for an injunction to separate ballots of those suspected of being noncitizens” only until the state can prove their citizenship.
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state → say → citizenship
At 76, Judge David Carter knows he shouldn’t be on skid row exposing himself to the coronavirus.
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he → know → coronavirus
But he wants more for L.A.’s homeless people.
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he → want → people
He argued that the “reliability and credibility” of the federal government process for flagging the 20,000 voters is unquestionable — while also telling Carter, “We’re never going to stand here and tell you that everything is 100%.”
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everything → argue → you
He said every vote counts, as some elections “are decided by a handful of votes,” and that the federal government is simply asking California not to break existing federal law barring noncitizens from voting.
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government → say → noncitizens
“We’re not telling California what they have to do.
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they → tell → what
We’re telling them what they can’t do, which is just count these ballots without doing more to ensure whether they’re citizens or not,” Essayli said.
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Essayli → tell → more
Essayli — who has aggressively sparred with California officials on social media for weeks — also argued to the court that the federal government has maintained a collaborative “tone” since first asking the state to segregate the ballots, and that he was surprised at how “adversarial” state elections officials have been on the issue.
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officials → spar → issue
Attorneys for Weber and the state said the Trump administration’s demand on the state “distorts several legal doctrines beyond recognition” and is clearly illegal, particularly during an ongoing election.
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demand → say → election
They said the administration has provided no evidence that the 20,000 voters aren’t noncitizens, and has used “data and methods known to be unreliable.”
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voters → say → data
Michael Cohen, a deputy attorney general for the state, said the Trump administration questions California law that allows voters to attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury, while ignoring the fact that standard was set not by the state but by Congress.
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standard → say → Congress
Anne Bellows, another deputy attorney general, said California has an established framework for running elections, and the Trump administration is trying to “sweep it off the table and replace it with a new, unclear procedure in which the federal government can issue a list and require California to change the way a subset of its voters’ ballots are received, and whether or not they are tabulated,” which she said was illegal and a “recipe for disenfranchisement” of thousands of legitimate voters.
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she → say → voters
“The stakes here are enormous,” she said.
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she → say → ?
Attorneys for Logan said the Trump administration has made its demands “without any credible argument” as to how it is legal, that the “proposed remedy” it is demanding from the state is “vague and unworkable,” and that if it wants to question California’s existing processes, “the proper audience for that argument” is Congress — not the federal court.
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audience → say → argument
Several attorneys for voting and civil rights groups also argued against the Trump administration during the hearing, including by arguing that its reliance on third-party data sets — including from Lexis Nexis — was not a trustworthy way of identifying whether voters are citizens.
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voters → argue → Nexis
The litigation is just one part of a much wider battle by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections nationwide, and particularly in California, including on the notion that state elections have insufficient guardrails to prevent noncitizens from voting.
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elections → intervene → noncitizens
Elections experts say such fraud occurs, but is exceedingly rare.
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fraud → say → ?
While the 9th Circuit panel’s unsigned ruling Monday rejected the Trump administration’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction, both judges in the majority — Mark J. Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, the Biden appointee — wrote independently to make clear that they would have rejected the case on its merits, too.
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rejected → reject → merits
They said it ran afoul of federal law barring interventions in voting in the immediate lead up to elections, and the U.S. Constitution, which reserves control of elections to the states and oversight to Congress, not the executive branch.
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which → say → Congress
Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, the other Trump appointee on the panel, also wrote independently in dissent — arguing the federal government must “have the power to stop this potential attack on the integrity of our elections.”
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government → write → elections
…and 8 more, not listed.
The Aporia
