LOS ANGELES. The Justice Department on Friday dropped its lawsuit against California, giving up its bid to force the state to set aside about 20,000 mail ballots cast in this fall’s election.
The department sued on Oct. 15. It said federal records showed that about 20,000 people on California’s voter rolls were likely not citizens. Federal law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections. The department asked a judge to order the state and Los Angeles County to keep those voters’ mail ballots apart from the rest, and out of the count, until each voter’s citizenship was checked.
California officials fought the suit from the start. They said the federal list was old and full of errors, and that it named people who had every right to vote.
The courts refused to help the department at every step. Judge David O. Carter turned down its request for emergency action on Oct. 28 and called the way the government picked out the voters “rife with uncertainty and errors.” A divided appeals panel refused, two to one, on Oct. 30. The Supreme Court turned the department away on Nov. 2 and gave no reasons, as is usual in emergency cases.
Friday’s filing was a short notice that ends the case. The department dropped the suit without prejudice, which in plain terms means it keeps the right to file a similar case again. The filing said that by the next hearing date, Nov. 13, California will have mixed the disputed ballots in with the lawful ones, so the order the department wanted can no longer be carried out.
The department also wrote that it is still looking at how to protect American votes, including ways to stop votes from being diluted by noncitizens.
With the case over, the disputed ballots stay in the count, and California’s results move on toward certification.
