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State Officials Warn Segregating Ballots Hours Before Polls Close Threatens Logistical Collapse · GNM News

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  Speaker 1: The Department of Justice filed an emergency application with the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court on Monday, requesting an immediate administrative stay to
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  Speaker 1: force California officials to segregate and withhold from counting over 20,000
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  Speaker 1: processed mail-in ballots. Submitted by Solicitor General D., John Sauer
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  Speaker 1: less than 24 hours before polls open in the 2026
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  Speaker 1: midterm elections. The high-stakes petition escalates a federal campaign targeting
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: alleged non-citizen voter registrations in key Democratic battleground districts. The
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  Speaker 1: emergency appeal follows consecutive defeats for the administration in lower
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  Speaker 1: federal courts. On Friday, a divided panel of the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a federal
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  Speaker 1: district judge's ruling that denied the Justice Department's injunction request.
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  Speaker 1: Lower courts concluded that forcing local registrars to alter ballot
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  Speaker 1: handling procedures on the eve of the election violates the
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  Speaker 1: National Voter Registration Act's 90-day freeze on voter role modifications
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  Speaker 1: and infringes upon state constitutional authority over election administration. In
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  Speaker 1: its filing to the Supreme Court, the administration argued that
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  Speaker 1: urgent intervention is required to prevent irreversible harm to election integrity.
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  Speaker 1: contending that once mail-in ballots are processed and separated from
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  Speaker 1: their identification envelopes, they cannot be retrieved or verified. The
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  Speaker 1: Justice Department's list, compiled by Cross-Referencing Department of Homeland Security
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  Speaker 1: Records with Public Voter Roles, has drawn intense pushback from
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  Speaker 1: state election officials and independent data analysts. who reported that
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  Speaker 1: over 40% of the targeted individuals do not appear on
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  Speaker 1: active voter files or are verified U.S. citizens. California Attorney
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  Speaker 1: General Rob Bonta condemned the late-minute emergency motion, characterizing it
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  Speaker 1: as an unconstitutional attempt to disenfranchise lawful voters and disrupt
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  Speaker 1: county tabulation centers. Election officials in Los Angeles and Orange
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  Speaker 1: counties warned that attempts to locate and isolate individual ballots
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  Speaker 1: at this stage would force a halt to active vote processing.
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  Speaker 1: Because the emergency application originates from the Ninth Circuit, Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court Circuit Justice Elena Kagan received the initial filing, with
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  Speaker 1: the full court expected to act rapidly as nationwide voting
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  Speaker 1: gets underway.