The Trump administration has now lost twice at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in its attempt to set aside roughly 20,000 mail-in ballots in California ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The administration claimed the ballots were sent to "likely non-citizens," but provided no evidence to support the list when California demanded proof. The court ruled Friday that granting the request would violate the Constitution's Elections Clause and risk disenfranchising eligible voters. The ruling's architecture is notable. Judges Mark Bennett (a Trump appointee) and Gabriel Sanchez (a Biden appointee) formed the bipartisan majority, while Trump appointee Patrick Bumatay dissented. The majority wrote that the administration's request would result not merely in ballot segregation but in "the cancellation of the ballot and the removal of voters from the voting rolls" — a remedy far exceeding any demonstrated harm. The evidentiary foundation beneath the administration's claims has crumbled under scrutiny. Nevada received a similar list of alleged non-citizen voters and found not a single name was correct. Some of the 28 foreign nationals charged with election infractions in California told the Los Angeles Times they had never registered to vote; reporting suggested name-matching errors were responsible. The administration's list was sent to California on October 12 — barely three weeks before Election Day — with no supporting documentation. Governor Gavin Newsom framed the lawsuit as voter suppression through the Justice Department. The broader pattern is worth examining: the administration has pursued similar challenges in Nevada and Washington, targeting states with significant mail-in voting infrastructure. Non-citizen voting in federal elections is already illegal in all 50 states. The question is whether the legal apparatus is being used to address an actual problem or to manufacture doubt about election integrity. The constitutional dimension is the load-bearing wall. The Elections Clause grants states exclusive authority to administer elections, with Congress — not the executive branch — holding the power to pass regulations on voting procedures. The 9th Circuit majority explicitly declined what it called "the United States's invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution's plain text." This is a separation-of-powers ruling dressed in election law. The court also flagged "major concerns" about public interest harm, specifically the risk of jeopardizing the "entire tabulation process" in a state that sends 52 members to the House of Representatives. With less than four days until the election, any intervention at this stage would have been operationally chaotic regardless of its legal merits. The practical outcome: the 20,000 ballots will be counted. The legal outcome: the executive branch has been told twice that it cannot override state election administration through emergency petitions based on unverified lists. Whether this precedent holds depends on whether the administration escalates to the Supreme Court — and whether it attempts the same strategy in future election cycles.
