Justice Department drops suit over 20,000 California ballots

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion on Friday to drop its lawsuit that sought to pause the counting of approximately 20,000 ballots in California. The federal government had argued that these ballots belonged to noncitizens and needed to be set aside while their immigration statuses were verified.

The request for dismissal arrives shortly after midterm election results showed losses for Republican candidates. It also comes one week before a scheduled hearing where a special master was set to review the accuracy of the list of alleged noncitizens. California officials have long maintained that the federal list is outdated and includes valid voters. Judge David O. Carter, who presides over the case, previously denied the federal government's initial request to stop the count, warning that interfering at such a late stage would disrupt the elections.

The Justice Department filed the original suit in mid-October, after ballots were mailed to all 23 million registered voters in the state. By the time of the dismissal motion, state election officials reported that they had processed about 9 million ballots, leaving nearly 5 million still to be counted. The federal motion states that California has already mixed the challenged ballots with lawful ones, making the specific relief sought by the government impossible to achieve. Once a ballot is processed, it is anonymized and cannot be easily separated from the rest.

Despite dropping this specific case, the Justice Department said it will continue to pursue other legal actions regarding election law. The department filed a separate motion in May to support a lawsuit claiming California fails to remove ineligible voters from its rolls. Bill Essayli, the top Los Angeles prosecutor, stated that the federal government will continue to use every available legal remedy to ensure only eligible citizens vote.

Kiersten Pels, a Justice Department spokesperson, maintained that California refused to cooperate with the federal request. She stated that thousands of likely noncitizens remain on the state's voter rolls and participated in the 2026 elections. In recent weeks, California prosecutors have arrested more than 30 noncitizens accused of illegally registering to vote. Some of those arrested also faced accusations of voting in previous elections.

Judge Carter appointed the special master in late October to help manage the case. The judge had warned that separating ballots after they were processed would risk disenfranchising citizens. The special master was also tasked with determining if California had a practical way to separate the disputed ballots from the rest of the mail-in ballots.