By Luc Cohen and Jan Wolfe
Oct 27 (Reuters) – A US judge heard arguments on Tuesday on the Justice Department’s request to block California from counting any mail ballots for the November 3 midterm elections from more than 20,000 registered voters the Trump administration alleges are likely noncitizens.
The Justice Department’s October 15 lawsuit marked an escalation in President Donald Trump’s effort to boost the federal government’s role in elections ahead of the midterms, with his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to retain control of both houses of Congress. The lawsuit is a rare intervention by the Justice Department in the voting process weeks before an election.
The US Constitution assigns the responsibility of administering elections to individual states, though the federal government has some oversight role.
US District Judge David Carter held a court hearing in Los Angeles to consider the department’s request for a temporary restraining order barring officials from counting any ballots from the individuals it flagged.
Cartrer ended the three-hour hearing without making a ruling, but told lawyers he would issue it on Wednesday.
California has said the state’s safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust. Anne Bellows, a lawyer for California, said during Tuesday’s hearing that the Justice Department’s assertions relied on “mysterious database methods” and that complying with its demands would risk disenfranchising eligible voters.
“The Supreme Court has reiterated time and again that, as an election is close at hand, federal courts should not interfere to change the rules under which that election is held,” Bellows added. “This applies with even more force when the election is ongoing.”
Justice Department lawyer Bilal Essayli countered that the federal government had made a narrow request to ensure election integrity.
California is the most populous US state and a Democratic stronghold. It has more seats in the House of Representatives — 52 — than any other state.
Trump has made California a focal point of his sweeping immigration crackdown since returning to the White House, accusing it of undermining public safety through its “sanctuary state” policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that states are not doing enough to stop voting by noncitizens, which he says is widespread despite multiple studies and state audits showing it is rare.
ADDITIONAL TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
The hearing comes after a federal appeals court on Monday rejected an unusual emergency request by the Justice Department asking the appeals court to temporarily block California from counting the ballots before Carter had the chance to rule.
The Justice Department did not indicate how many of the more than 20,000 people it flagged in California had actually submitted a mail ballot.
Apart from California, the Trump administration has sought to intervene in elections in two states that are home to competitive races.
In Alaska, the Justice Department last week asked a judge to prevent certification of election results if the Republican incumbent senator loses by a slim margin, alleging that the presence of another candidate with a similar name on the ballot could confuse voters. Alaska has urged that the case be dismissed, arguing it has taken steps to distinguish the two candidates on the ballot.
In Washington state, the Justice Department on Monday sent a letter asking officials not to count any ballots received from 400 voters it said may not be citizens. Washington’s top elections official said the timing of the request indicated it was intended to cast unfounded suspicion on election results.
California had 23 million registered voters as of December 2025, while Washington had 5 million registered voters as of 2024, state records show.
Voting rights activists have expressed concern that the federal government’s methods for scrutinizing state voter lists to identify noncitizen voters risk wrongly flagging naturalized citizens for removal from the rolls.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Jan Wolfe in Washington; editing by Noeleen Walder, Deepa Babington and Bill Berkrot)
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