A federal appeals court has heard arguments over the Trump administration’s attempt to challenge California’s handling of alleged noncitizens on its voter rolls. However, the judges ended the emergency hearing without issuing a ruling, according to ABC News.
The dispute centers on a list of roughly 20,000 people the administration claims may be noncitizens who received mail-in ballots for California’s upcoming midterm election. The DOJ has argued that state officials have not done enough to investigate the names, while California officials have pushed back, saying the list has not been verified and appears to include lawful voters.
A three-judge panel heard the arguments after the Trump administration unexpectedly appealed, claiming a district judge had not acted quickly enough. The panel includes two judges appointed by President Donald Trump and one appointed by former President Joe Biden.
There is no clear verdict
Circuit Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, repeatedly questioned whether the appeals court had jurisdiction to take up the dispute before the district court hearing, adding “I don’t see how we have jurisdiction.” He also raised concerns about the constitutional basis of the DOJ’s lawsuit, pointing to the Elections Clause, which gives states a central role in determining how elections are conducted.
“How can it preempt something that is expressly authorized by a provision of the Constitution?” Bennett asked DOJ attorney Matthew Donnelly, challenging the administration’s argument that federal law gave it grounds to intervene in California’s voter-roll procedures.
Donnelly argued that the state’s handling of the list interfered with the federal government’s ability to enforce a law prohibiting noncitizens from voting. Bennett remained unconvinced, questioning how the court could grant the requested relief when both federal and state law already prohibit noncitizens from voting.
California officials have also disputed the reliability of the list. In a court filing, Los Angeles officials said a preliminary review of 200 names found that nearly 40% of the individuals appeared to have been born in the United States, while 71.2% of the records showed no voting history. Following this, several voters were arrested in the state earlier.
The judges also considered the potential consequences of ordering California to separate certain mail-in ballots while election preparations were already underway. State officials warned that such an order could have a “catastrophic” impact on ballot counting.
Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay, another Trump appointee, pressed California attorney Samuel Siegel on whether an injunction was needed to prevent potentially unlawful votes from being counted. Siegel countered the statement: “Your Honor, we would respectfully disagree with that because of the number of steps that people have to take to attest to their citizenship, to declare, consistent with what is required by both federal and state law, that they are citizens when they register to vote.”
“Congress and the California legislature have said non-citizens can’t vote, and this lawsuit is about ‘we don’t like the way you’re sorting citizens from non-citizens, and I just don’t see 611 as telling California how to do the sorting,” Bennett said. However, Siegel argued that the administration was asking the court to intervene just as an election was underway, rather than seeking the authority it wanted from Congress.
The Justice Department had also recently asked California county election officials to help determine which people on the list were citizens, giving them 48 hours to commit to working with federal authorities. The appeals panel said it would try to decide the case as quickly as possible, but it had not issued a ruling by the end of the hearing.
Published: Oct 27, 2026 09:30 am