Appeals court rejects DOJ bid to set aside disputed California ballots

A federal appeals panel has refused to make California hold back a set of contested ballots in the midterm election, handing the Trump administration another loss in its push to oversee how states run their elections. By a 2-1 vote, the 9th Circuit found that the Justice Department had not justified emergency relief while its appeal goes forward. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez, in an unsigned decision, cited the risk of hardship to the state and of disenfranchising eligible voters, and said singling out particular voters' ballots could have catastrophic consequences for the whole system, according to CBS News.

Federal officials contend that roughly 20,000 recipients of California ballots may be noncitizens and want those ballots left uncounted until status is confirmed. State officials say the list is badly flawed and probably includes many citizens. A district judge had already turned down the request. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have been processed, and election officials say those votes are anonymized and cannot be traced to individual voters.

Separately, a federal judge in Washington ordered the administration to give the names to two groups suing over the data, and unions including the A. F. L. -C. I. O.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →