Ninth Circuit skeptical of Trump bid to segregate California ballots Play

As Malibu voters began in-person voters last weekend, the Trump administration's efforts to stage a last-minute takeover of California's in-progress election ran into a very skeptical federal court of appeals Sunday.

Meeting in an extraordinary Sunday session in public, all three judges appeared poised to reject the Justice Department's last-minute bid to change California's election procedures as in-person voting has already started.

The Justice Department wants to force L.A. County election workers to set aside ballots cast by people on a mysterious list of 20,000 names that they've come up with.

The two Trump appointees and the one Biden appointee on the panel all signaled they see serious flaws in the Department of Justice's demand for immediate action.

The Trump prosecutors want California to separate out any ballots submitted by voters who appear on this list of 20,000 people that they suspect are non-citizens. But the Justice Department will not say how they drew up that list.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Matthew Donnelly Sunday stressed that the Justice Department is not trying to toss any ballots out, at least not yet.

Arguing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Donnelly said "we are simply asking for them to segregate the ballots. We are not asking for them to cancel any votes." He was interrupted by Court of Appeals Justice Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, who questioned the reliability of DHS declarations.

A different justice, Gabriel Sanchez, then cut in: "I guarantee you there are many Gabriel Sanchezes in the County of Los Angeles. And whether you're choosing the right person or not based on a name, you can understand why there's some question about the reliability of some methodology that California has never undertaken before."

After the session, legal analysts generally agreed this looks like another Trump election lawsuit fail.

Lori Levinson, a law professor at Loyola University, told NBC4 Los Angeles: "They didn't present very persuasive evidence, and that's part of the problem. They've been relying on lists that they claim that someone came up with that showed that people are most likely not citizens.

"But we know from other states like Nevada that sometimes they come up with tens of thousands, even more, and none of them turn out actually to be illegal voting.," she said. "So I don't think there's a lot of credibility on this particular argument."

Democrats worry that if ballots are segregated in California, the Trump administration might move after the election to seize those ballots and prevent them from being counted.

Democrats benefit from greater turnout from vote-by-mail, but there was no ID required for that at the polling place — after all, it's your own mailbox.

Republicans view that as a threat to the integrity of the United States voting system.