District Judge Denies Trump Request To Withhold 20,000 California Ballots 

I know the Trump administration has never seen Mean Girls because they keep trying to make fetch happen. A federal judge handed the administration another legal L after denying their request to withhold 20,000 mail-in ballots in California. Fetch is not happening, folks. 

AP reports that the Trump administration filed a lawsuit asking a district court to withhold 20,000 ballots belonging to folks they believe are likely non-citizens. Mind you, they don’t have hard evidence that these 20,000 people are non-citizens, hence the word “likely.” Early voting is already underway in California, with 500,000 ballots having already been processed this week. As a result, California election officials have said it would be nearly impossible to identify which ballot belongs to which voter. 

Not to mention the fact that we are less than a week away from Election Day, which would mean the administration’s request would have an incredibly disruptive effect on California’s ability to count and process ballots. Which, honestly, feels like a fool’s errand because California is arguably the bluest of Blue states.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter wrote that the Trump administration’s request “would wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway, create a chilling effect on election workers and voters alike, and discount the votes of United States citizens.”

“Eroded trust in our democracy is irreparable. Once a vote is segregated, lasting harm has occurred,” Carter wrote. “If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger. This Court declines to be a party to such process.” 

Carter’s ruling didn’t dissuade First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli from defending the lawsuit’s merits on Wednesday. “Every day, more ballots are processed by election officials,” Essayli wrote on social media following the ruling. “This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution.”

It really doesn’t, but when the outlook is so piss poor for Republicans heading into next week’s midterm election, I’m not surprised Trump officials are trying to grasp at all the straws they can to deny reality. 

The Trump administration has filed several lawsuits in recent weeks across multiple states over allegations of voter fraud. Earlier this week, the Department of Justice asked the state of Washington to withhold 400 ballots over concerns of non-citizen voting. They don’t have hard evidence that these people aren’t citizens, but when has that ever stopped President Donald Trump and his cronies from making claims about voter fraud? The DOJ has also filed a lawsuit against Alaska to prevent the vote from being certified if the Republican candidate doesn’t win. 

These fools are doing literally everything except meaningfully addressing the cost of living crisis, and then having the shocked Pikachu face when it results in people voting for the opposition. 

The Trump administration has said that it would appeal Carter’s ruling, but an appeals court already declined to rule on the case because Carter hadn’t issued his ruling yet. Even if it had issued a ruling, it seemed unlikely to favor the Trump administration, as the appeals court seemed skeptical about its arguments. 

SEE ALSO:

Polling Sites To Have Thousands Of Monitors Between Dems, DOJ

DOJ Asks Washington To Withhold 400 Ballots Over Voter Fraud Claims