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Court appears skeptical of Trump DOJ's lawsuit over California voter rolls · GNN Daily Breaking News

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  Speaker 1: A federal appeals court panel appeared sharply skeptical of an
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  Speaker 1: emergency attempt by the Department of Justice to force California
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  Speaker 1: election officials to set aside tens of thousands of mail-in
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  Speaker 1: ballots during the ongoing midterm election. During oral arguments before
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  Speaker 1: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Judges
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  Speaker 1: aggressively questioned Justice Department attorneys regarding a lawsuit that seeks
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  Speaker 1: to mandate the segregation and citizenship verification of up to 20,000
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  Speaker 1: ballots prior to official tabulation. The federal intervention, filed just
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  Speaker 1: weeks before the November 3rd voting deadline, represents an unprecedented
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  Speaker 1: effort by the administration to challenge state-level administration of federal elections.
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  Speaker 1: The legal confrontation centers on federal claims that an internal
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  Speaker 1: analysis comparing California voter rosters with immigration databases identified thousands
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  Speaker 1: of registered voters who may lack U.S. citizenship. Justice Department
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  Speaker 1: prosecutors argued that immediate judicial relief is necessary to prevent
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  Speaker 1: the potential tabulation of unlawful votes and enforce federal criminal
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  Speaker 1: statutes barring non-citizen voting. However, members of the three-judge panel
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  Speaker 1: repeatedly questioned the federal government's authority to override state election
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  Speaker 1: procedures established by the California legislature, raising fundamental constitutional concerns
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  Speaker 1: under the Elections Clause. Appellate judges pressed federal counsel on
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  Speaker 1: why the executive branch waited until active voting was underway
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  Speaker 1: to seek an emergency injunction that could disrupt standard vote-counting protocols.
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  Speaker 1: Legal representatives for the state of California strongly defended the
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  Speaker 1: integrity of their voter rolls, emphasizing that state law already
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  Speaker 1: mandates citizenship affirmations under penalty of perjury and contains robust
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  Speaker 1: mechanisms for challenging eligibility. State attorneys argued that complying with
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  Speaker 1: the federal government's late demand would create widespread administrative confusion,
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  Speaker 1: undermine public trust. and risk disenfranchising eligible voters whose citizenship
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  Speaker 1: status was questioned based on unverified federal matching lists. The
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  Speaker 1: Ninth Circuit's apparent hesitation to grant the Justice Department's request
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  Speaker 1: highlights growing judicial resistance to federal attempts to regulate state
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  Speaker 1: voter rolls in the final days of the midterm campaign.
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  Speaker 1: With early voting underway and millions of mail ballots already
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  Speaker 1: circulating across California, A formal ruling against the administration could
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  Speaker 1: deal a significant blow to the Justice Department's broader legal
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  Speaker 1: offensive targeting voter rolls in multiple states. Legal experts expect
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  Speaker 1: the panel to issue a rapid decision as county registrars
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  Speaker 1: prepare for final vote tabulations.