DOJ dismisses lawsuit over California’s 20,000 disputed ballots

The Justice Department (DOJ) requested Friday to dismiss its lawsuit against California, which sought to make the state’s election officials set aside roughly 20,000 ballots for voters the federal government alleged were not U.S. citizens.

The Supreme Court already ruled against the Trump administration in an emergency order ahead of Election Day, preventing them from forcing California to set aside the ballots. A federal judge had previously blocked the administration’s request.

The DOJ had sought to prevent the state from counting the ballots until the voters’ immigration status could be verified.

The motion comes after Republicans faced sweeping losses in Tuesday’s midterms, during which they lost at least seven Senate and 42 House seats — and more races still outstanding.

The DOJ’s California lawsuit was one of several the agency brought forth ahead of Election Day. The Trump administration had also filed a lawsuit in Alaska seeking to block the state’s election certification if incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) lost, arguing the presence of another candidate on the ballot, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., could have confused voters.

A judge dismissed that lawsuit before Election Day, but the Trump administration vowed to appeal. As of Friday, Sullivan narrowly trails his Democratic opponent, Mary Peltola, in the Senate race — but no winner has been projected, as thousands of votes remain uncounted.

Accusations of noncitizen voting are not new for the Trump administration, which has sent threatening letters to state election officials and demanded states turn over their voter rolls to identify non-U.S. citizens.

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused Nevada of having nearly 16,000 possible noncitizens on its voter rolls. DHS later revised that number down to 185, but when Nevada officials investigated, they found all of those identified were actually U.S. citizens, The New York Times reported.

Noncitizen voting is permitted in some local elections but is illegal federally. Multiple studies have found that noncitizen voting is not widespread in U.S. elections.

On Election Day, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened any noncitizens who tried to vote with a warning.

“If you vote illegally in this country, and you are NOT eligible to vote, [DHS] will find you, hunt you down, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Mullin wrote on social platform X.