Right To Vote Upheld in Federal Court Wednesday; Trump Administration Appeals

LOS ANGELES (KEYT) – A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump Administration's demands to remove voters from California's voter rolls without legal authority remains unlawful.

"This case is about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election," opened District Judge David O. Carter in his decision Wednesday of this week. "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. In bringing this lawsuit, the Executive would have this Court believe that it reigns as a sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign, too."

Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that decisions regarding, "the times, places, and manner of holding Elections" are delegated to Congress and managed by each state and federal law requires states to maintain accurate voter rolls.

The Section does not mention any executive branch position, office, or department.

Earlier this month, federal prosecutors argued that in order to prevent potential unlawful voting, thousands of ballots must be removed from the tabulation process.

"If California passed a law that allowed noncitizens to vote for a candidate who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives, that state law would conflict with federal law," explained the Trump Administration's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California earlier this month. "Because California cannot pass a statute allowing noncitizens to vote in a federal election, it also cannot induce, encourage, promote, or knowingly facilitate noncitizen voting for a candidate who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives."

According to the California Secretary of State's website, only U.S. citizens over the age of 18 on Election day, not currently serving a state or federal prison term for a felony conviction, and not found mentally incompetent to vote are eligible to register to vote in the state.

"The law is clear, aliens in the United States cannot vote in federal elections," said Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter. "What our complaint alleges is that California is facilitating unlawful voting by knowingly allowing noncitizens to vote."

It was not made clear in the Trump Administration's lawsuit how federal prosecutors would be prevented under current law from prosecuting those who vote unlawfully as they did just last month before filing the lawsuit as well as the same day as the decision this week.

"Every generation in our history has witnessed repeated clashes between those who seek to limit access to the ballot and those who fight to ensure it," explained Judge Carter in his denial this week. "In this case, the federal government seeks to segregate and exclude over 20,000 ballots. This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections. If Plaintiff's last-minute request for relief were granted, either party could create chaos for their own political purposes to disrupt the election process. Over 20,000 registered Californians would potentially lose the right that generations of Americans have fought to preserve."

In August of this year, over a quarter of the U.S. Senate reminded the Trump Administration that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 prohibits major changes to voter rolls within 90 days of an election.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 created a 90-day window where changes to voter rolls are prohibited to protect the right of voters to challenge their removal stating in 52 U.S.C. § 20507(c)(2), "A State shall complete, not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election for Federal office, any program the purpose of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters."

August's letter also noted that even claims of only removing non-citizen voters within the 90-day window have already been rejected by federal courts in two separate cases, See Mi Familia Vota v. Peterson last year and League of United Latin American Citizens of Arizona v. Reagan in 2018.

"California election officials were given an opportunity to remove noncitizens from their voter rolls and to sequester ballots returned from suspected ineligible voters. They refused," argued First Assistant Bill Essayli earlier this month. "We are taking California to federal court to demand that the votes of American citizens not be diluted by noncitizens."

In October of last year, a federal judge found that Essayli was unlawfully serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and earlier this week, the same judge found that the former-acting U.S. Attorney is still serving in the position without Senate approval and outside of the timeline described in federal law.

Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires that the Principal Officers of the nation must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and 28 U.S. Code § 541 explicitly states that the Senate must approve each U.S. Attorney.

"We respectfully disagree with the court's order. The President and the Attorney General have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department," argued First Assistant Essayli regarding the ruling this week. "Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then."

Essayli was appointed the interim U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California in March of last year after the previous U.S. Attorney abruptly tendered his resignation in January, just days before the second inauguration of President Trump.

On July 29, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Essayli -a former federal prosecutor and elected member of the California Assembly- to serve as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District two days before a 120-day statutory limit to his service as an interim U.S. Attorney ended.

Essayli resigned his position as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney and accepted the Attorney General's appointment as the Acting U.S. Attorney the same day.

Despite the legal process detailed in federal law and subsequent rulings by federal courts, Mr. Essayli argued, "He [District Judge Seabright] says I have served unlawfully as the acting, but he says I served lawfully as the first assistant. Its a distinction without a difference. And he says so in his order, it doesn't make a difference."

During this year's primary in June, the same prosecutor's office announced multiple election fraud investigations at the direction of the President who went on to claim the announcement resulted in changes to the primary election's outcome.

On July 16 of this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to the California Secretary of State Shirley Weber -the official responsible for conducting elections in the state- that there, "may be as many as 190,832 non-citizens registered to vote in California".

Secretary Weber shared her "serious doubts" about the accuracy of the claims, requested details about the process used to determine the number, and explained that federal law prevented her office from terminating voter registrations within 90 days of a federal election noted Judge Carter Wednesday.

The Aug. 5, 2026, deadline to make changes to voter rolls, "came and went without further actions form the federal government" detailed Judge Carter in his denial this week.

Instead, earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice hand-delivered a letter and thumb drive to the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and County Clerk Dean Logan after the county had already issued around 5.9 million vote-by-mail ballots to registered voters.

The drive had a list of over 20,000 people the Justice Department stated were, "likely noncitizens" and demanded that Los Angeles County elections officials remove the registered voters from the state's voter rolls detailed Judge Carter.

Before the two-day deadline imposed by the Department of Justice, the County of Los Angeles noted that the list contained voters not registered in the county, prohibiting them from making changes, and that the Trump Administration's demands were "legally prohibited" due to a lack of qualifying evidence.

Regardless of the legal concerns of elections officials in Los Angeles County, the Justice Department sued elections officials in Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State arguing that hosting elections was considered facilitating a crime and demanded that federal courts step in to prevent future voting-related crimes.

"The core of the United States' asserted injury is that Los Angeles County and the State of California are impeding its ability to enforce 18 U.S.C. § 611, a federal criminal statute which makes it 'unlawful for any alien to vote in any [federal] election'," explained Judge Carter. "The United States does not explain why Defendants continuing to count ballots impairs any present or future Section 611 prosecution. This raises redressability concerns. Requiring Defendants to segregate ballots, as the TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] seeks, would force Defendants to reallocate finite resources towards enabling the United States' preferred method of election administration. But enforcing such a requirement would not eliminate or prevent—that is, redress—any alleged 'interference' with federal law enforcement."

"California enforces its constitutional mandate that only citizens may vote through a series of elections laws which, for example, require an attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury in order to register to vote (Cal. Elec Code §§ 2101, 2102(c)); match signatures on mail-in ballots to records of those registrations (Cal. Elec Code §§ 2111, 3019); provide a process to cancel the registration of any voter upon proof that the individual was not eligible to vote (Cal. Elec. Code § 2201(a)(8), (c), 2213); and, most squarely in line with Section 611, criminalize fraudulent voting by ineligible voters (Cal. Elec. Code § 18560)," added Judge Carter. "These procedures reinforce, rather than conflict with, Section 611's prohibition on noncitizen voting."

Notably, while Section 611 details criminal punishments for non-citizens who cast a vote illegally, "It includes no express preemption provision" detailed Judge Carter. Meaning that the U.S. Constitution's requirement that states conduct elections in accordance with laws passed by Congress stands.

"It cannot reasonably be concluded that Congress, through a federal misdemeanor provision [Section 611], intended to strip California of its Constitutionally-vested responsibility for election administration and implicitly granted that power to Executive Branch's Department of Justice," concluded Judge Carter.

Judge Carter went on to explain that granting the Trump Administration's request would violate federal elections laws including the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the Voting Rights Act of 1970 and the Civil Rights Act.

While federal law already makes unlawful voting illegal, multiple federal laws explicitly prohibit election interference by individuals acting, "under the color of law":

• 18 U.S.C. § 242: Prohibits willfully acting under government authority to deprive individuals of their rights, including the right to vote
• 18 U.S.C. § 592: Prohibits stationing "troops or armed men" by military or federal officials at the polls in a general or special election
• 18 U.S.C. § 595: Prohibits government employees from using official authority in connection with federally financed activity to interfere with or affect a federal election
• 18 U.S.C. § 598: Prohibits the use of congressional appropriations "for the purpose of interfering with, restraining, or coercing" any person in the exercise of the right to vote
• 52 U.S.C. § 10307(a): Prohibits persons acting under color of law from failing or refusing "to permit any person to vote who is entitled to vote" or "to tabulate, count, and report such person's vote."

"Granting the TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] would risk disenfranchising an untold number of voters," warned Judge Carter. "Plaintiff has not provided credible evidence for its allegation. Rather, Plaintiff's own description of its methodology in creating the list was vague and raised multiple questions regarding reliability. Additionally, Plaintiff's similar allegations elsewhere have called into question its process of identifying noncitizens."

To wit, in May of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded that 48 states and Washington D.C. provide unredacted copies of voter registration lists and eventually filed 30 separate lawsuits against entities that did not provide legally-protected information about voters.

In January of this year, the same federal judge in Wednesday's ruling dismissed the Trump Administration's demand for voter information on Californians finding the Justice Department's request was, "unprecedented and illegal".

"[T]he right to vote was won through generations of sacrifices from marginalized communities the American political system devalued, but who were determined to make the promise of democracy real," shared Judge Carter in his January dismissal. "The pieces of legislation at issue in this litigation were not passed as an unrestricted means for the Executive to collect highly sensitive information about the American people. It is not for the Executive, or even this Court to authorize the use of civil rights legislation as a tool to forsake the privacy rights of millions of Americans. That power belongs solely to Congress."

Federal courts in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. have all rejected the demands from the Trump Administration for legally-protected voter information.

Indeed, no single federal court has required any state in the nation to turn over their voter information in this manner ruling 27 consecutive times that the requests do not comply with the law.

Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security asserted that the state of Nevada could have up to 15,903 non-citizens registered to vote and asked that those registered voters be removed before the upcoming election cycle.

After requests for more information as well as the methodology used to identify the potentially unlawful voters by election officials in Nevada, the Department of Homeland Security provided a spreadsheet of 185 registered voters they stated had been reviewed and flagged as unlawful voters in August.

"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," noted Nevada's deputy Attorney General Greg Ott in September of this year in response to the Department of Homeland Security. "You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

"Had Nevada officials accepted Plaintiff's allegations there as true, 185 citizens would have been deprived of their vote," noted Judge Carter in his denial Wednesday. "This Court will not deprive Californians who have met the requirements for voter registration of their fundamental right because of Plaintiff's unfounded allegations."

Undeterred by Wednesday's ruling, First Assistant Essayli shared in a press statement Wednesday, "The district court denied our emergency request to sequester ballots from 20,000 suspected noncitizens. Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials. This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution. The Solicitor General authorized an immediate appeal. We filed our Notice of Appeal and will immediately seek an emergency order from the Ninth Circuit."

Federal prosecutors attempted to leapfrog District Judge Carter prior to his ruling this week by appealing to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals before a decision had been made.

The regional appeals court denied the initial request.

"Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest favors their protection," concluded Judge Carter in Wednesday's decision. "Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred. If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger. This Court declines to be a party to such process."