Judge Refuses to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots DOJ Flagged as Noncitizen Votes. Guard the Ballot With Proof.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

A federal judge on Wednesday refused the Trump administration's request to force California to set aside mail ballots from roughly 20,000 people the Justice Department says are likely noncitizens. U.S. District Judge David Carter ruled six days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and the Justice Department said it would appeal, CBS News reported.

"This request violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections," Carter wrote, according to NBC News. He wrote that what the administration sought "would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens."

The judge doubted the list

Carter questioned how the government built its list. "Given the vagueness of Plaintiff's descriptions of its procedures and the unreliability of its similar claims in other states, the Court cannot conclude that Plaintiff's process is credible," he wrote, as quoted by NBC News.

He pointed to Nevada. "In Nevada, DHS initially identified up to 15,903 registered voters as noncitizens based on 'high-confidence' matches, but later reduced that number to 6,218, and then to 185 after conducting its manual review. Nevada officials later confirmed that all 185 individuals were citizens," the judge wrote, according to NBC.

In the 26-page decision, Carter also wrote, "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," CBS reported.

The government's case

The Justice Department sued California, Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County registrar Dean Logan this month after sending letters claiming that roughly 20,000 suspected noncitizens were registered and had received mail ballots, according to CBS. California has more than 23 million registered voters. Federal and California law both prohibit noncitizens from voting.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said the administration was not asking to void or cancel any ballots. After the ruling he said in a statement, "Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials. This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution," CBS reported. The department plans to seek an emergency order from the 9th Circuit. That appeals court had dismissed an earlier appeal 2-1 on Monday, finding the administration had not given the district judge an "adequate opportunity" to rule first.

At a hearing Tuesday, Carter asked why prosecutors could not instead pursue indictments after the election against anyone who voted illegally. "The remedy as a good prosecutor is to make sure these people are prosecuted," he told the government's lawyers, according to CBS.

Opinion: Guard the ballot, but do it with proof

Let me be clear about where I stand. Only citizens should vote, and every illegal ballot cancels out a lawful one. Conservatives are right to demand clean voter rolls, and the Justice Department is right to go after anyone who breaks the law. It has already done so in California, as we reported in DOJ Charges 28 Noncitizens in California With Voting Crimes. That is the right way: name the person, show the evidence, and let a jury decide.

What the department asked for this time was different. It wanted 20,000 ballots set aside in the middle of an election on the strength of a list the judge found too vague to trust. The Nevada numbers are hard to wave away. A list that started near 16,000 and ended at 185 people, all of them citizens, is not a list anyone should use to hold up a single ballot. If you would not want a Democratic administration doing this to a red state, you should not cheer it now.

Scripture gives judges and rulers the same standard. Moses told Israel's judges, "Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great." The citizen who mailed in a lawful ballot is the small one here. He deserves to be heard, and the accused deserves evidence before punishment.

So let the appeal go forward, and let the courts settle it on the law. In the meantime, the department has a better tool than a dragnet. Verify the names one by one, prosecute the guilty after the count, and make the cases stick. That protects the ballot and the voter at the same time.

Related on Dock Line: Appeals Court Doubts DOJ Bid to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots