L.A. judge weighs feds' request to block 20,000 California votes - Los Angeles Times
Judge David O. Carter seemed skeptical of a Trump administration request to immediately block California officials from counting about 20,000 ballots from voters whose citizenship the administration questions, but said he would not rule until Wednesday.
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Read the original articleLos Angeles Times · latimes.comRead Just the Facts8 outlets, left to rightOur verdict
Political lean
0 = center. The further from 0, the stronger the lean (max 10).
Reporting balance
How complete and even-handed the reporting is — separate from which side it leans.
This is a fairly professional news report that gives the Trump administration's lawyer, the judge, the state and the county each real space, but it tilts slightly toward the skeptics of the administration through contrasting phrases such as 'despite' and combative verbs such as 'slapped back'. Its main weakness is that the administration's rationale and its response to the data-reliability objections are almost absent, so readers cannot judge how the 20,000 flagged list was built. Read it for the court-hearing facts, then check the administration's filings and an independent source on how the flagged list was compiled before deciding how much the citizenship dispute proves.
- Why this lean
- The article gives substantial space to the Trump administration's lawyer, which keeps it from a strong tilt. However, the framing tilts toward the judge and the state: the judge's skepticism leads the lede and is repeated; the administration's claims are repeatedly introduced with 'despite' or 'claims of'; and the state's attorneys get more quoted and paraphrased argument (including the 'distorts several legal doctrines beyond recognition' line) than the administration gets rebuttal of its data. The lean is slight, not clear: most adjectives and sequencing favor the skeptics of the administration, but the piece reports the administration's argument and the dissenting judge's view.
- Framing
- Told from the courtroom and the state-and-judge side, treating the central question as whether the administration can force California to segregate ballots without a proven basis, with the administration's reliability claims presented as contested.
Key Findings
- 1Balance of direct voices: Essayli gets extensive quoted space, including 'We're not telling California what they have to do', which gives the administration's argument a real hearing rather than summarizing it away.
- 2Framing through adverbs and contrasts: the article says Essayli 'denied threatening state officials, despite the Justice Department having sent formal letters to election officials statewide last week', placing the administration's denial in a contrast the reader must adjudicate without the administration's explanation of the letters.
- 3Unbalanced closing: the administration's rationale gets one unexamined sentence ('The Trump administration has said it is merely trying to enforce the law...'), while the state's and county's arguments are developed across several paragraphs with specific legal claims.
- 4Data gap: the article reports the state's charge that the administration used 'data and methods known to be unreliable' and that the Lexis Nexis data is untrustworthy, but gives no administration answer about the data method. The reader cannot assess how the 20,000 list was built.
- 5Strengths: the article is careful to attribute claims, cites the judges' party appointments on both sides of the 9th Circuit panel, reports the judge's own skeptical questions ('What are these systems? What are the algorithms? How was this derived?'), and notes that Essayli's own statements are in dispute.
Who gets a voice
- David O. CarterU.S. District Judge who heard the case and has not yet ruledSkeptical of the administration's request and of its methodMain voice
- Bill EssayliFirst Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued for the Trump administrationAdministration: request is narrow, reliable and needed to stop illegal votesMain voice
- Michael CohenDeputy attorney general for the stateCalifornia: state law allowing attestation of citizenship under penalty of perjury is validMinor voice
- Anne BellowsDeputy attorney general for the stateCalifornia: the federal demand would disenfranchise legitimate votersMinor voice
- Attorneys for Shirley Weber and the state (unnamed)Counsel for California's Secretary of StateCalifornia: the demand is illegal and rests on unreliable dataMinor voice
- Attorneys for Dean Logan (unnamed)Counsel for the LA County registrarCounty: the federal remedy is vague and unworkable; Congress, not the court, is the forumMinor voice
- Trent McCotterActing Deputy Attorney General who sent the 48-hour demandAdministration: the flagged voters are 'likely noncitizens'Minor voice
- Judges Mark J. Bennett and Gabriel P. Sanchez (9th Circuit majority)Appellate judges who ruled the appeal lacked jurisdictionBoth wrote that they would also have rejected the case on the merits, citing federal law and the ConstitutionMinor voice
- Judge Patrick J. Bumatay9th Circuit dissenterAdministration: the federal government must be able to stop a potential attack on election integrityMinor voice
Loaded language
'Suspect' implies wrongdoing before any finding; the article elsewhere uses 'flagged' and 'the 20,000 flagged voters'.
The phrase characterizes the judge's disposition in the article's own voice, which tilts the reader toward the judge's view of the administration's urgency.
Informal, combative phrasing for court rulings against the executive orders; it frames the judiciary as pushing back.
'Despite' presents the administration's claims as already undercut before the reader has the judge's reasoning.
Although attributed to state officials, the term is strong and is not balanced by a clear administration response to the letters' purpose.
'Aggressively' characterizes Essayli's conduct beyond the court record and adds an evaluative judgment.
Dimension Breakdown
Several sides are heard, including the judge, the federal prosecutor, state and county officials, rights-group lawyers and both 9th Circuit majority and dissent. The administration side is represented by one lawyer, and no independent elections experts or data specialists are quoted by name.
Most attribution is clear, but evaluative terms appear in the article's own voice, such as 'the reverse of what's normal', 'slapped back', 'despite the Trump administration's claims of urgency' and 'a clear reference'. The label 'suspect voters' is used in the body where 'flagged' is the neutral term the article also uses.
The core figures (about 20,000 ballots, more than 23 million registered voters, 28 people charged) are given with context, but the method behind the 20,000 list is not explained. 'Elections experts say such fraud occurs, but is exceedingly rare' has no source or figure.
Both legal camps and multiple judges are heard, but the administration's answer to the data-reliability and Lexis Nexis objections is absent, and its closing rationale is one unexamined sentence. Election officials supporting the administration's list are not quoted beyond Essayli.
The headline is not in the supplied text. The URL slug ('judge-carter... request-to-block-20000-california-votes') describes the request accurately; the lede faithfully reports a skeptical judge who has not yet ruled. Accuracy here cannot be fully checked without the headline.
The piece explains the 9th Circuit procedure, the 48-hour deadline, the warning letters, Carter's earlier voter-roll ruling and the wider litigation. It does not explain the federal statute on noncitizen voting or how the flagged list was generated in any detail, which a reader needs to weigh the dispute.
Missing Perspectives
- The administration's answer to the Lexis Nexis and third-party data objections, and any description of how the 20,000 list was assembled; without it readers cannot judge the reliability dispute the judge is focused on.
- Independent election-security or citizenship-verification experts (not party-affiliated) who could assess the flagged list's likely error rate, given the article's note that noncitizen voting is 'exceedingly rare' but cites no source for that claim.
- Whether any of the 28 people charged are connected to the 20,000 list, and how lawful permanent residents came to be on a citizenship question; this bears directly on whether the list is accurate.
Highlighted Passages
“despite the Justice Department having sent formal letters to election officials statewide last week”
“The Trump administration has said it is merely trying to enforce the law and ensure that noncitizens do not illegally vote”
“Federal judges also have slapped back executive orders”
“State officials denounced the letters as a legally baseless intimidation tactic.”
Key Facts
- Judge David O. Carter, a Clinton appointee, heard the request on Tuesday and said he would rule Wednesday, except on an order that threats against state and county officials cease immediately (per the article's report of the hearing).
- The Justice Department asked a court to block California from counting about 20,000 ballots from voters whose citizenship the administration questions (per the article).
- Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter gave Secretary of State Shirley Weber and LA County Registrar Dean Logan 48 hours to set aside ballots for the 20,000 flagged voters, whom he described as 'likely noncitizens' (per the article).
- The 9th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 on Monday that it lacked jurisdiction because Carter had not yet ruled; the majority judges wrote separately that they would have rejected the case on the merits (per the article).
- Essayli said the request was 'on a very narrow request for an injunction to separate ballots of those suspected of being noncitizens' until the state proves citizenship; he also denied threatening state officials (per the article).
- Federal prosecutors recently charged 28 lawful permanent residents in California with election-related crimes, including illegal voter registration; some of the defendants said they had no recollection of registering or had never voted (per the article).
- There are more than 23 million registered voters in California (per the article, no source given).
