A federal judge in Los Angeles rejected the Justice Department’s request to force California to not count the ballots of 20,000 people until the federal government can verify they are citizens.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found that he could not conclude the list was credible, and that allowing them to segregate ballots would “wreak havoc and disrupt the election.”
“The DOJ’s actions are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials,” the order reads. “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.”
The DOJ sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan after they declined to set aside the ballots of 20,000 voters after being given a 48-hour deadline to do so by the DOJ.
The order pointed out that the DOJ has filed 31 lawsuits in federal courts trying to get complete voter rolls from states and has lost in all 26 cases that have been decided.
“Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement after the decision. “This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution.”
The DOJ has appealed the decision to the 9th circuit.