More than 20,000 California mail ballots that the Justice Department tried to pull out of the midterm count will be counted after all.

U.S. District Judge David Carter denied the department’s request for a temporary restraining order in a 26-page order issued Wednesday evening, Oct. 28, 2026, after a hearing Tuesday, Oct. 27, in Los Angeles federal court. The department had asked him to bar California and Los Angeles County from counting mail ballots belonging to more than 20,000 registered voters it says are “likely” noncitizens. Carter, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, refused. The Justice Department immediately filed notice of appeal.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” Carter wrote.

The judge said the last-minute demand ran against constitutional principles that leave elections in the hands of the states. A ruling for the Trump administration, he warned, would “wreak havoc.”

The List Includes U.S.-Born Voters

State and local officials told the court the department’s list is unreliable. A preliminary analysis by Los Angeles County found that many of the people on it do not have active voter registrations, and some of those flagged appear to be U.S.-born. California said its safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust and that the department’s assertions rested on “suspect data.”

The Justice Department never said how many of the more than 20,000 people it flagged had actually returned a mail ballot. Officials argued that setting ballots aside days before Election Day, with voting and mail ballot processing already under way, would be unlawful, infeasible and would disenfranchise eligible voters.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, asked the judge in a court filing to weigh the circumstances behind the demand, writing that more federal interference in the state would follow and that the court should not be pulled into it. Jonathan Miller, chief program officer at Public Rights Project and counsel for Los Angeles County, said the ruling showed the federal government was interfering in the election.

What Happens When the Envelopes Open

The department’s urgency argument came down to mechanics. Once signatures on returned mail ballot envelopes are verified, the ballots are separated from the envelopes to protect voter confidentiality — and an ineligible ballot can no longer be retrieved.

Carter pointed to a remedy the government already has: indicting people for the crime of voting illegally as noncitizens. Department officials say they have charged dozens of people in the past two months with registering or voting without being U.S. citizens, including 28 in California. The judge wrote that the department never explained why counting the ballots would impair any prosecution, and he noted that states are not required to help federal officials investigate and prosecute crimes.

Audits and investigations have shown voting by noncitizens to be extremely rare. President Donald Trump nonetheless calls it widespread and has repeatedly accused states of failing to prevent it. He has made California a focal point of his immigration crackdown since returning to the White House, accusing the state of undermining public safety through its sanctuary policies.

The Next Stop Is the 9th Circuit

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said he would seek an emergency order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials,” he said in a statement, calling the situation an ongoing emergency that dilutes the votes of American citizens.

That appeals court has already turned the department away once. On Monday, Oct. 26, a divided panel threw out the department’s bid to halt the count before Carter had even ruled. The dispute could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

The California suit, filed Oct. 15, is one of a string of unprecedented moves the department has made in states close to Election Day. Federal prosecutors asked Washington state election officials on Monday, Oct. 26, to review a list of 400 registered voters they believe are likely noncitizens. In Alaska, the department sued to stop the state from certifying results in its Senate race if the Republican incumbent loses because of ballots cast for a similarly named longshot whom the department accuses of being a spoiler.

The stakes are concentrated in the country’s largest state. California is a Democratic stronghold with 52 House seats, more than any other state, and Trump’s Republican Party is locked in a tight battle to keep control of both chambers of Congress on Nov. 3.

“Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,” Carter wrote at the conclusion of his order.