US appeals court again rejects Trump bid to set aside California ballots

The 9th Circuit Court called the petition to remove 20,000 ballots from California’s vote count unconstitutional.

Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli speaks after a court hearing on October 27 over a lawsuit to set aside 20,000 ballots in California [Daniel Cole/Reuters]

For the second time in less than a week, an appeals court in the United States has rejected a petition from the administration of President Donald Trump to set aside 20,000 ballots in California over concerns about non-citizen voting.

The decision arrived on Friday, with less than four days to go until the November 3 midterm elections.

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s request would not only violate the US Constitution but also risk disenfranchising eligible voters.

“The consequence of the United States’s request is not merely ballot segregation, but ultimately both the cancellation of the ballot and the removal of voters from the voting rolls,” the majority wrote in its ruling.

Two judges — Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez — formed the majority. They were appointed by Trump and his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, respectively.

A third judge, Trump appointee Patrick Bumatay, issued a dissent, calling the administration’s petition a “reasonable request”.

The Trump administration has claimed that nearly 20,000 “likely non-citizens” received mail-in ballots to vote in California’s midterm elections on November 3. It sued the state on October 15 to prevent those ballots from being counted.

But the accuracy of the Trump administration’s list has been called into doubt, as have its claims of widespread non-citizen voting.

Election fraud in the US is extremely rare. So is non-citizen voting, despite Trump’s assertion earlier this year that as many as 278,000 foreign nationals across the country were registered to cast a ballot.

Like California, states like Nevada and Washington have also received lists of alleged non-citizen voters, but officials there have found the documents to be largely inaccurate.

In Nevada, for instance, state authorities ultimately issued a statement in September saying that the Trump administration had erroneously identified citizens as non-citizens on its list. Not a single name was correct, according to the statement.

California is a Democratic stronghold, and on November 3, it will elect 52 members of the House of Representatives, one of Congress’s two chambers.

The state, however, has long been a target for criticism under Trump, who has accused its Democratic leadership of “cheating” in elections.

But California officials, including Governor Gavin Newsom, have countered that the Trump administration is seeking to meddle in the state’s elections to sow voter distrust and undermine the election results.

“This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters,” Newsom said in a news release, following the October 15 lawsuit.

Non-citizen voting in federal elections is against the law in all 50 US states, including California.

The Constitution’s Election Clause also grants states the exclusive authority to administer elections, though it does allow for Congress to pass regulations concerning voting procedures.

The Trump administration initially sent California its list of 20,000 “likely non-citizens” on October 12, barely three weeks before the midterm election.

But California officials refused its demand to set aside the 20,000 ballots, requesting instead proof that the names on the list were indeed foreign nationals. According to the California government, no such evidence has been provided.

The Trump administration last week charged 28 foreign nationals in California with election-related infractions, but some of the accused told the Los Angeles Times they had never registered to vote.

The newspaper’s reporting suggested some of the non-citizen defendants shared the same name as eligible voters.

As the October 15 lawsuit navigated the court system earlier this month, the Trump administration sought an emergency ruling from the 9th Circuit Court to suspend the 20,000 ballots.

But the appeals court rejected that petition on Monday, saying that the Trump administration had not given lower courts adequate time to weigh the matter.

A lower court ultimately ruled against the Trump administration on Wednesday, and it again appealed to the 9th Circuit Court.

In its majority decision, the appeals court framed the Trump administration’s lawsuit as an attempt to violate the Constitution’s Election Clause.

“We decline the United States’s invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution’s plain text,” the majority wrote.

The majority also wrote that it had “major concerns” that granting the Trump administration’s request would “harm the public interest by risking the disenfranchisement of eligible voters and putting the entire tabulation process in jeopardy”.

第九巡回法院裁定，要求从加州计票结果中移除 20,000 张选票的请愿书违宪。

美国助理检察官比尔·埃萨利 (Bill Essayli) 在 10 月 27 日的法庭听证会后发表讲话，该听证会涉及一起旨在搁置加州 2 万张选票的诉讼。[丹尼尔·科尔/路透社]

不到一周的时间里，美国一家上诉法院第二次驳回了唐纳德·特朗普总统政府提出的因担心非公民投票而搁置加利福尼亚州 20,000 张选票的请愿。

该决定于周五公布，距离11月3日的中期选举不到四天。

列表 1/3：法官驳回特朗普阻止加州“非公民”选票的努力

特朗普政府再次试图阻止阿拉斯加州选举结果（共3项，此为第2项）

加州中期选举须知（共3条，此为第3条）

第九巡回上诉法院裁定，特朗普的要求不仅违反了美国宪法，而且有可能剥夺符合资格的选民的选举权。

“美国的要求所造成的后果不仅仅是选票隔离，最终还会导致选票被取消，选民被从选民名册中除名，”多数派在裁决中写道。

多数派由两名法官组成：马克·贝内特和加布里埃尔·桑切斯。他们分别由特朗普和他的民主党前任乔·拜登任命。

第三位法官，特朗普任命的帕特里克·布马泰，发表了反对意见，称政府的请愿是“合理的要求”。

特朗普政府声称，近 2 万名“可能非公民”收到了邮寄选票，用于参加 11 月 3 日加利福尼亚州的中期选举。10 月 15 日，特朗普政府起诉加州政府，试图阻止这些选票被计入。

但特朗普政府公布的名单的准确性受到了质疑，其关于非公民广泛投票的说法也受到了质疑。

美国的选举舞弊现象极其罕见。非公民投票的情况也同样罕见，尽管特朗普今年早些时候声称，全美有多达27.8万名外国公民登记投票。

与加利福尼亚州一样，内华达州和华盛顿州等州也收到了所谓的非公民选民名单，但当地官员发现这些文件大多不准确。

例如，内华达州政府最终在9月份发表声明称，特朗普政府在其名单上错误地将一些公民列为非公民。声明指出，名单上没有一个名字是正确的。

加利福尼亚州是民主党的堡垒，11 月 3 日，该州将选举产生众议院的 52 名议员，众议院是国会的两个议院之一。

然而，该州长期以来一直是特朗普批评的目标，特朗普指责该州民主党领导层在选举中“作弊”。

但包括州长加文·纽森在内的加州官员反驳说，特朗普政府试图干预该州的选举，以散布选民不信任并破坏选举结果。

在10月15日提起诉讼后，纽森在一份新闻稿中表示：“这是特朗普令人悲哀、绝望的企图，他试图利用其政治化的司法部来压制加州选民。”

在美国所有50个州，包括加利福尼亚州，非公民在联邦选举中投票都是违法的。

宪法的选举条款赋予各州管理选举的专属权力，但也允许国会制定有关投票程序的法规。

特朗普政府最初于 10 月 12 日向加利福尼亚州发送了 20,000 名“可能非公民”的名单，距离中期选举仅剩不到三周时间。

但加州官员拒绝了其搁置这2万张选票的要求，而是要求提供证据证明名单上的名字确实属于外国公民。加州政府称，目前尚未收到此类证据。

上周，特朗普政府指控加州 28 名外国公民犯有与选举相关的违规行为，但其中一些被告告诉《洛杉矶时报》，他们从未登记投票。

该报的报道暗示，一些非公民被告与符合投票资格的选民同名。

本月早些时候，在 10 月 15 日的诉讼案进入司法程序之际，特朗普政府向第九巡回法院寻求紧急裁决，以暂停 20,000 张选票的计票。

但上诉法院周一驳回了该请愿，称特朗普政府没有给下级法院足够的时间来权衡此事。

周三，下级法院最终裁定特朗普政府败诉，特朗普政府再次向第九巡回上诉法院提起上诉。

上诉法院在多数意见中将特朗普政府的诉讼定性为试图违反宪法选举条款。

“我们拒绝美国通过破坏宪法明文规定来违反选举条款的邀请，”多数派写道。

多数派还写道，他们“非常担心”批准特朗普政府的要求会“损害公共利益，因为这可能会导致符合资格的选民被剥夺选举权，并使整个计票过程处于危险之中”。