The Justice Department moved on Friday to voluntarily dismiss its federal lawsuit against California seeking to halt the tabulation of approximately 20,000 mail ballots sent to flagged individuals pending verification of their citizenship status.
In its filing, the department stated that the disputed ballots will have already been mixed with lawful ballots before a scheduled court hearing, making any isolation impossible. "The relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available—rendering voluntary dismissal necessary," federal prosecutors wrote in the motion.
The voluntary withdrawal follows earlier legal setbacks in federal court. On Monday, the Supreme Court denied an emergency appeal from the Justice Department in an unsigned order that refused to mandate the segregation of those ballots. That decision left in place an order by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who had refused to order altered election procedures in late October and appointed a special master to examine the list's data.
Ballot Processing and the Mootness Threshold
State election officials reported having tabulated approximately 9 million ballots by early Friday, with nearly 5 million still uncounted out of 23 million registered voters who received mail ballots. Once election workers open and process vote-by-mail envelopes, ballots are separated from identifying voter information and completely anonymized.
Bill Essayli, the chief federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, had previously acknowledged in court that the legal effort would become moot after Election Day because processed ballots cannot be retrieved or isolated. Essayli explained that the federal initiative had intended to "safeguard the integrity of the election so it doesn't have an effect on the upcoming election" and prevent illegal voting rather than chase ballots after tabulation.
California officials had contended that the federal government's list of flagged names was outdated and contained eligible citizens. In separate enforcement, California prosecutors recently arrested more than 30 noncitizens accused of unlawfully registering to vote, with some accused of casting ballots in earlier elections. County election clerks across the state also received grand jury subpoenas in the week before the election directing them to testify in November.
