Background
Federal agencies compared California’s voter roll with federal records and produced a list of approximately 20,000 registered voters they considered likely noncitizens. Shortly before the November 3, 2026 election, the United States asked California and Los Angeles County to segregate ballots associated with those voters and verify their citizenship before counting their votes. State and county officials refused, questioning the list’s reliability.
The United States sued, alleging that counting such ballots would violate 18 U.S.C. § 611, which prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and that the statute preempted California’s election procedures. After an adversarial hearing, the district court denied the government’s application for a temporary restraining order. The United States appealed and sought an emergency injunction pending appeal requiring California to segregate the identified ballots and establish a citizenship-verification process.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit held that it had appellate jurisdiction because the district court’s denial of the temporary restraining order was effectively a denial of a preliminary injunction. The district court had conducted a full adversarial hearing, and the approaching election meant that the government would otherwise be effectively foreclosed from obtaining meaningful interlocutory relief. The panel assumed without deciding that the United States had standing and a cause of action.
The court denied the emergency motion, concluding that the United States had not satisfied the demanding standard for a mandatory injunction. Section 611 criminalizes noncitizen voting but does not prescribe how states must process challenged ballots, authorize federal control over an ongoing state election, or clearly preempt California’s procedures for determining voter eligibility. The potential conflict with the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day restriction on systematic voter removals supplied an additional reason why the government had not clearly shown likely success.
The court also concluded that the remaining injunction factors favored California. The district court had reasonably questioned the federal list’s reliability and found that creating new ballot-segregation procedures during an ongoing election could disenfranchise eligible voters, disrupt Los Angeles County’s election systems, and threaten timely certification. The Purcell principle further counseled against a last-minute judicial change to election administration. Judge Bumatay dissented, reasoning that Section 611 preempted California’s commingling of the challenged ballots and that a limited segregation order was warranted.
Key Takeaways
- A fully litigated TRO denial may be immediately appealable when it functions as a preliminary-injunction denial and the timing would otherwise foreclose meaningful relief.
- Section 611 did not clearly displace California’s statutory procedures for challenging voter eligibility or require the state to segregate ballots identified through the federal government’s process.
- The risk of disenfranchisement and election-system disruption, combined with the election’s proximity, outweighed the government’s asserted interest in immediate ballot segregation.
Why It Matters
The order limits the federal government’s ability to use Section 611 as a basis for compelling last-minute changes to state ballot-processing procedures. Although the court did not hold that Section 611 can never preempt state law, it held that the statute did not clearly authorize the specific intervention sought on the facts presented.
The decision also illustrates the exceptionally high burden for obtaining a mandatory injunction during an election already underway. Courts will closely examine the reliability of the asserted evidence, conflicts with other federal election laws, administrative feasibility, and the risk that late judicial intervention will disrupt voting or disenfranchise eligible voters.