The Justice Department on Friday dropped its lawsuit seeking to force California to set aside mail ballots tied to about 20,000 registered voters it alleged were likely noncitizens, ending the case after four consecutive court setbacks.
The department filed a notice of voluntary dismissal in federal court in Los Angeles in United States v. California, the case it brought in mid-October. The government had asked California and Los Angeles County election officials to segregate mail ballots associated with a list of roughly 20,000 people until their citizenship could be verified.
The courts repeatedly refused. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed an emergency appeal on October 26, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied a temporary restraining order on October 28, the Ninth Circuit denied an emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal on October 30, and the Supreme Court rejected the administration's emergency application on November 2, a day before the midterm elections.
In its November 6 filing, the department said the relief it had sought was no longer available. A hearing scheduled for November 13 was to test the reliability of the government's list, but by then California election officials would already have mixed the disputed ballots with lawful ones. "The relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available — rendering voluntary dismissal necessary," the filing said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the dismissal on Friday, saying the administration dropped the case after the four court losses and before the scheduled hearing. State election officials reported that counties had counted 8,906,017 ballots as of November 5, with about 4.8 million still to be processed.
The dismissal ends this particular lawsuit without a ruling on the underlying allegations. It does not establish that the people on the disputed list voted illegally, and the department said it would continue pursuing suspected election-law violations through other cases.
