Appeals court again refuses DOJ bid to set aside ballots tied to 20,000 California registrants

Reactions: DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday's ruling, Courthouse News reported. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli has said DOJ is moving "at a lightning pace" and could take the fight to the Supreme Court, Democracy Docket reported. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said "three legal victories in one week make clear that the Trump administration has zero authority to interfere in California's elections," calling the administration's fraud claims "baseless." That is Bonta's reading; no court has ruled on the full merits of DOJ's lawsuit, and the rulings so far deny emergency relief.

The list itself: Also on Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington, D.C., ordered DOJ to hand its list to lawyers for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the UCLA Voting Rights Project by Friday evening so they can check it for errors and whether their members are on it, Bloomberg Law and AP reported. He barred them from sharing the list beyond their legal team. Boasberg questioned the list's accuracy, noting the government first flagged 190,000 names to California this summer, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

What the evidence shows: The list's accuracy remains the central dispute, and neither side has shown how many people on it are actually noncitizens. Carter, in his Oct. 28 ruling, cited Nevada, where DHS first flagged nearly 16,000 registered voters as noncitizens, cut that to 185 after review, and then to none when Nevada officials confirmed all 185 were citizens (NBC News, Courthouse News). DOJ says Homeland Security Investigations used "multiple data-enrichment and verification methods" to build the California list, Fox News reported, and on Oct. 19 DOJ charged 28 green-card holders in California with crimes including falsely claiming citizenship to register (DOJ). Los Angeles County's earlier sample of 200 names found 112 canceled or inactive registrations that were never mailed a ballot, CBS reported (the county's analysis, not a court finding).

Strongest case from each side: DOJ and its supporters argue the federal government has a duty to keep noncitizens from voting in federal races, and that once ballots are separated from envelopes and counted, illegal votes cannot be pulled back. "This ongoing emergency disenfranchises American citizens through dilution," Essayli said after Carter's ruling (Fox News). California argues DOJ has never shown how it built its list, that its numbers keep shifting, and that more than 500,000 ballots had already been taken out of their envelopes by midweek, so flagged votes cannot reliably be separated (NBC News, Fox News).

Timeline: July: DHS tells California more than 190,000 noncitizens might be registered. Oct. 13: DOJ gives officials 48 hours to set aside flagged ballots. Oct. 15: DOJ sues over about 20,000 names. Oct. 16: DOJ warns officials who count those ballots could be "aiders and abettors" to a federal crime. Oct. 19: DOJ charges 28 green-card holders. Oct. 26: 9th Circuit panel dismisses DOJ's first appeal as premature. Oct. 28: Carter denies DOJ's request; DOJ appeals that night. Oct. 30: 9th Circuit panel denies DOJ's new emergency request; Boasberg orders the list shared with CHIRLA's lawyers.

What's still unknown: Whether DOJ asks the Supreme Court to step in before the Nov. 3 election, and how the justices would respond; what CHIRLA's lawyers find when they review the list; how many people on the list are noncitizens and how many returned ballots; and whether similar requests aimed at other states, including Washington, go anywhere.

Updated Oct. 30 with the 9th Circuit panel's ruling denying DOJ's new emergency request and Judge Boasberg's order on the list. Earlier updates covered Judge Carter's Oct. 28 ruling, the 9th Circuit's Oct. 26 dismissal and DOJ's Oct. 16 warning to ballot counters; that background is kept below. Source leanings are tagged where noted.