Ninth Circuit Allows Ballot Segregation Requests

What happened

Updated 5:57pm ET

The Ninth Circuit voted 6-5 Tuesday to restore permission for the Justice Department to ask California and Washington to set aside ballots from voters it suspects are noncitizens.
The ruling again paused Judge Trina Thompson’s restrictions on those requests and related prosecution warnings, after the appeals court lifted and then restored her order Monday.
Federal officials flagged about 20,000 California voters as possible noncitizens, but state and local election officials said the list was unreliable and included U.S. citizens.
The ruling does not require either state to separate ballots; the Supreme Court on Monday rejected a separate administration request to force California to do so.
The underlying lawsuit continues, with no determination from this ruling that any individual voter is ineligible and the decision’s effect on the election still unclear.

How the left told it

Left-leaning outlets largely framed the litigation as an effort to interfere with elections that courts had resisted. The New York Times highlighted a “string of losses,” while MS NOW called the Supreme Court rejection a sign of limits; AlterNet’s later “Whiplash” report portrayed the Ninth Circuit’s reversal as allowing intimidation of election workers.

How the right told it

Right-leaning outlets largely framed permission to pursue suspected noncitizen ballots as an election-integrity victory. Breitbart called the policy “election integrity,” and The Blaze described a “STUNNING REVERSAL.” The Washington Examiner called the latest ruling a “decisive victory” but stressed that it neither forces ballot segregation nor determines any voter’s eligibility.