CA Ballot Hearing: Judge Refuses DOJ Witnesses, Suggests Counting Ballots and Prosecuting Later

<![CDATA[Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice, the State of California, and Los Angeles County were back in court Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles as District Court Judge David Carter held a hearing on the DOJ’s emergency motion requesting the court order both California and Los Angeles County to segregate vote-by-mail ballots returned by any of the 20,000 people on a list of people they’d determined are “likely noncitizens” who are registered to vote in the state. Much of the nearly three-hour hearing was consumed by attorneys for the defendants and intervenors arguing that they had no idea how the list was compiled and that it was riddled with errors, so they shouldn’t have to verify the citizenship of anyone on it, and that segregating these ballots would be an impossible burden this close to election day. The Department of Justice had three witnesses available to testify on these issues and be subjected to cross-examination by attorneys for California and LA County and to questioning from the court, and despite First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli offering those witnesses several times during the hearing, neither Carter or the defense attorneys requested witness testimony.]]>