Justice Department drops suit to stop California from counting 20,000 disputed ballots

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion on Friday to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit against California. The federal government had sought to halt the counting of approximately 20,000 ballots it alleged belonged to noncitizens. The motion argues that the state has already processed most of the ballots, making it impossible to separate the disputed votes from the rest.

The decision follows a series of events in the midterm election cycle. In mid-October, the Justice Department filed the lawsuit after ballots were mailed to all 23 million registered voters in the state. At that point, hundreds of thousands of ballots had already been processed. Once a ballot is processed, state rules make it completely anonymized. The federal government argued that these ballots went to noncitizens until immigration statuses could be verified.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, presided over the case. In late October, Carter allowed California to proceed with elections as planned. He appointed a special master to evaluate the accuracy of the federal government's list of alleged noncitizens. The judge’s order warned that separating ballots at a late stage would risk disenfranchising citizens and would "wreak havoc" on the midterm elections. California officials had previously told the court that the federal list was out of date and included legitimate voters.

The dismissal request comes days after Republican losses in the midterms and about a week before the special master was scheduled to review the data. State election officials reported that California had processed roughly 9 million ballots as of early Friday. Nearly 5 million ballots remained to be counted. The federal motion states that by the time of the upcoming hearing, the state will have irreparably commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones.

The Justice Department said the relief it sought is no longer available, rendering voluntary dismissal necessary. In a statement Friday evening, the department said it would continue to prosecute suspected violations of election law through other legal cases. The department also filed a motion to support a separate lawsuit filed in May. That case alleges California violates national voting laws by failing to sufficiently remove ineligible voters from its rolls.

Bill Essayli, the top Los Angeles prosecutor, said the intervention is part of an effort to pursue every available civil and criminal remedy to ensure only eligible American citizens vote. Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels maintained that California refused to cooperate with federal requests. She said thousands of likely noncitizens remain on voter rolls and voted in the 2026 elections. California prosecutors have arrested more than 30 noncitizens in recent weeks who are accused of illegally registering to vote.