---
title: "Appeals Court Won’t Freeze 20,000 California Ballots"
url: https://www.herewashingtondc.com/2026/10/31/appeals-court-refuses-freeze-20000-california-mail-ballots/
date: 2026-10-31T08:55:11-04:00
modified: 2026-10-31T08:55:11-04:00
author: "HERE City National Desk"
categories: ["National", "Politics"]
site: "HERE Washington DC"
attribution: "HERE Washington DC"
---

# Appeals Court Won’t Freeze 20,000 California Ballots

*Source: [HERE Washington DC](https://www.herewashingtondc.com/2026/10/31/appeals-court-refuses-freeze-20000-california-mail-ballots/) — October 31, 2026 by HERE City National Desk*

*From the HERE City National Desk*

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — A divided federal appeals panel on Friday turned down the Trump administration’s emergency request to make California pull aside mail ballots from roughly 20,000 voters that federal officials say may not be citizens.

The 2-1 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals leaves in place a lower court ruling from Wednesday. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez found the Justice Department had not shown that it deserved an order while its appeal goes forward. Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, as he did when the same panel ruled against the government earlier in the week.

The majority agreed with the trial judge that there is no practical way to locate and separate particular voters’ ballots without risking serious damage to the whole count. Election officials have said ballots already processed are stripped of identifying information and cannot be traced back to a voter. Hundreds of thousands have already gone through that step.

The panel also said the Constitution’s elections clause gives states control of how elections are run, and that if Washington wants different rules for mail voting, it should ask Congress rather than the courts.

The administration says the 20,000 names belong to people who may be noncitizens and that counting their votes would dilute citizens’ voices. California officials call the list unreliable and say it likely includes many citizens. In Nevada, a comparable federal list of about 16,000 names shrank to 185 registered voters, all of whom proved to be citizens, the trial judge noted.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement that the week’s court wins show the administration has no authority over the state’s elections. Millions of Californians have already voted ahead of Tuesday’s election.