Feds move to dismiss case over 20,000 California ballots after Supreme Court denied appeal

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Set us as preferred The U.S.Justice Department moved Friday to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit challenging the counting of 20,000 ballots in California, arguing the relief it sought is now impossible given Tuesday’s midterm election has concluded.The Justice Department had sought a court order requiring state and Los Angeles County election officials to set aside the ballots, which it alleged could be from noncitizen voters.

U.S.District Judge David O.

Carter and a three-judge panel of the U.S.9th Circuit Court of Appeals had both rejected that request, and the U.S.

Supreme Court denied a Trump administration appeal to those lower court rulings — with no noted dissents.Carter had ruled that the government’s request was probably unconstitutional, given the Constitution gives states and Congress power over elections, not the executive, and probably ran afoul of federal law barring sweeping vetting of voter rolls in the immediate run-up to an election.However, he had set a schedule moving forward for additional fact-finding in the case — including by appointing a special master to dig into the data the federal government was relying on to assert the 20,000 voters were potentially noncitizens.In a filing before Carter on Friday, Assistant U.S.Atty.

Julie Hamill in Los Angeles wrote that that court process was no longer necessary, as it would not provide the relief that the federal government was seeking by filing its lawsuit.“In light of the Supreme Court’s denial, the United States is evaluating how to best ensure that American votes are protected, including by preventing vote dilution by noncitizens.

In addition, by the time of this Court’s hearing on Nov.13 in this matter, California will have already commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones,” Hamill wrote.

“There is then no way to get the ch...