Judge rejects Trump administration bid to set aside 20,000 California ballots

Saying the Trump administration had embarked on “a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference,” a federal judge on Wednesday refused to order California election officials to set aside 20,000 ballots over claims those voters might not be citizens.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch,” wrote U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton.