The Trump administration has successfully, if narrowly, challenged a court order that would have barred it from contesting California ballots and prohibited it from intimidating election workers. The back-and-forth stretched out over the last two days of voting in California.
The latest ruling, handed down Tuesday in a tight 6-5 decision among 11 federal appellate court judges, suspends a restraining order sought by the Service Employees International Union.
The restraining order alleged violations of the Voting Rights Act and forbade the federal government from sequestering ballots and threatening election officials with prosecution.
In the new decision, the panel of 11 judges found that the federal government can request to investigate ballots despite rulings in a separate case in which California blocked the Trump administration from challenging 20,000 ballots.
Six judges ruled for the majority and five dissented.
“Here, we consider only whether the Government can make such a request in the first place,” wrote U.S. Circuit Court Judge Carlos Bea. “And as we explained above, we think that the Government has established that it likely can. We find these requests to be core Executive functions that did not actually disturb the states’ regulation of their own elections.”
The background is complicated and involves three separate court decisions: First, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said on Monday that challenging ballots was a right of the government and “core executive (branch) function.”
That decision was reversed by a larger panel of judges on the federal appellate court later on Monday.
Then, on Tuesday, another panel of 11 judges reinstated the stay.
– Nigel Duara