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Ninth Circuit sets Sunday hearing in California ballot dispute

The appeals court scheduled remote arguments before a district judge hears the Justice Department’s request. California and Los Angeles County challenge the appeal’s timing and the government’s bid to pause ballots tied to roughly 20,000 people federal agencies have flagged as likely noncitizens.

By Wrivid News Desk
The empty courtroom inside San Francisco’s James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building, photographed in May 2009. Archival context; the 2026 arguments were scheduled remotely.
The empty courtroom inside San Francisco’s James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building, photographed in May 2009. Archival context; the 2026 arguments were scheduled remotely.File photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · file details · Library of Congress rights advisory: no known restrictions on publication. Archival courtroom photograph made in May 2009 for a General Services Administration assignment; resized for display.

Executive summary

  • The Ninth Circuit ordered a 60-minute remote hearing for 1 p.m. Pacific on Sunday, Oct. 25, in the federal government’s appeal over California mail ballots. The order allocates 30 minutes to each side and makes no ruling on the requested injunction.[1][2]
  • The Justice Department wants an injunction pending appeal that would stop officials from tabulating certain ballots until voters’ citizenship is verified. California and Los Angeles County say the appeal is premature because the district judge has not ruled and dispute the federal government’s legal and factual basis.[3][4][5]
  • The Ninth Circuit’s scheduling order does not decide whether it has jurisdiction, whether the government is entitled to emergency relief or how California should process ballots. A separate district-court hearing remains scheduled for Oct. 27.[1][6][4]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set remote oral argument for 1 p.m. PDT Sunday in United States v. California, appeal No. 26-7070. The Oct. 24 order gives the parties 60 minutes total, split evenly. It sets a hearing, not a decision: the order does not grant an injunction or direct election officials to change their ballot procedures.[1]

The dispute began in federal district court, where the Justice Department sued California and Los Angeles County over a list of roughly 20,000 people it identified as likely noncitizens who had been sent mail ballots. The department asked the judge to stop tabulation of ballots associated with the list until citizenship could be verified. District Judge David O. Carter scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, Oct. 27; the government appealed before he ruled on its request.[3][7][4]

California and Los Angeles County argue the appeals court cannot act because there is no district-court order to review. Their filings also contest the government’s request to intervene in ballot handling during an election already underway. Those are arguments by the defendants; the Ninth Circuit has not ruled on them.[4][6]

The government says its list identifies registered voters who are likely noncitizens and argues that California’s refusal to verify them interferes with federal enforcement of the law against noncitizen voting. Noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal. The government’s list and its characterization of the people on it remain allegations; they are not findings that each listed person is ineligible or cast a ballot.[3][2]

California says the federal government has not explained how it built the list and argues the requested process conflicts with state election law and ballot secrecy. The state’s Oct. 24 filing says Los Angeles County had processed about 331,000 returned mail ballots by Oct. 20. It also cites a county review of 200 names from the federal list that found canceled registrations and no voting history among many of those records. That review covered a small subset; it does not establish an error rate for all names on the list.[4][2]

Separately, county election officials told The Associated Press that federal letters sent Friday sought sensitive identifying information and gave local offices 48 hours to respond. The letters asked officials to set aside ballots tied to people whose citizenship could not be verified. DOJ spokeswoman Kiersten Pels said the department was not requesting a voter-registration purge. The immediate question before the appeals panel is the government’s emergency request and the court’s authority to consider it, not a final determination of anyone’s citizenship or eligibility.[2][6]

The briefing puts two immediate questions in play: whether the Ninth Circuit can review the case before the district judge issues a ruling, and whether ballots should be held while the appeal proceeds. The court ordered the Justice Department to respond Sunday to Los Angeles County’s emergency motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The scheduling orders do not indicate how the panel will answer either question.[6][4][1]

The district-court hearing remains set for Tuesday. Until a court issues an order, the appellate argument itself does not change California’s ballot-counting rules. The filings reviewed for this report show the parties’ competing positions; no ruling on the emergency request had been issued when the Sunday hearing was scheduled.[1][4][2]