A federal appeals court on Friday rejected the Justice Department's request to have California set aside disputed ballots from the midterm election, dealing the Trump administration another legal setback in its effort to assert control over how states run their elections.

A divided panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Justice Department had not met its burden for an injunction pending appeal. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez wrote that "major concerns remain that granting the United States's requested relief might result in immense hardship to Defendants and harm the public interest by risking the disenfranchisement of eligible voters and putting the entire tabulation process in jeopardy."

What the government wanted

The administration has alleged that California sent ballots to roughly 20,000 people who may not be US citizens. It asked the court to order the state to set those ballots aside and not count them until citizenship could be verified. California officials say the list behind the allegation is highly unreliable and likely includes many people who are citizens.

A district court judge had already denied the request, warning that the government's demands could disenfranchise eligible voters. The appeals court agreed that the district court had not clearly erred.

Why the court said no

The panel's reasoning turned on feasibility rather than politics. "As the district court found, there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system," the judges wrote. They added that the relief the administration sought is "simple only in the abstract".

That phrase is the core of the ruling. Setting aside specific ballots sounds administrative, but election officials have already processed hundreds of thousands of votes, and processed ballots are separated from identifying information. Matching a ballot to a person after the fact is not a records request; it is a reconstruction that election systems are designed to prevent, for secrecy reasons.

The timing and the stakes

The ruling arrived before Election Day, which falls on Tuesday, November 3. Millions of Californians have already voted, and early voting has been under way in most states. The dispute is one front in a wider legal battle between the federal government and states over election administration, and it is being decided while ballots are moving.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling, according to CBS News. The administration can still pursue the case on the merits, but the practical effect of Friday's order is that the disputed ballots are not being segregated now.

What it means for voters

For a voter whose ballot might be on the disputed list, the ruling removes an immediate risk that the ballot would be withheld. It does not resolve the underlying question of whether the list is accurate, and it does not stop the government from continuing to investigate.

For election officials, the ruling preserves the existing process in the final days of voting. California officials say the list is highly unreliable, and the court did not adopt that view as a finding, but it did accept that the district court's factual assessment was not clearly wrong.

The wider pattern

California officials have said processed ballots are anonymous, which is one reason matching a ballot to an individual after the fact is difficult. The state has not published the list behind the government's allegation, and the administration has not published the evidence behind it in the reporting reviewed here.

Friday's decision is the latest in a series of courtroom losses for an administration that has tried to reshape election rules through litigation in the run-up to the midterms. It is also a reminder that the federal judiciary has been the main brake on those efforts: district courts have moved first, and appeals courts have mostly let those rulings stand on emergency review.

That does not mean the legal fight is over. Emergency appeals are decided on narrow records, and a full appeal can revisit the same questions with more evidence. The 9th Circuit's order keeps the ballots in the count while that process continues.

What to watch

Two things will matter in the next week. First, whether the Justice Department asks the Supreme Court to intervene before Tuesday. Second, whether the underlying dispute over the voter list produces evidence that changes how courts see it. Neither has happened yet.

For readers following the election-law thread, our coverage of the Wedgewood poll fabrication admission shows how quickly claims about election data can collapse, and the Kansas ballot eligibility dispute covers a state-level fight over who appears on the ballot. The Supreme Court's 9/11 plea denial is a different case but the same institution, and a useful guide to how emergency appeals reach the justices.

The confirmed facts are the 2-1 ruling, the two judges in the majority, the government's 20,000-ballot allegation and the state's dispute of it. Everything beyond that, including whether any ballot was cast improperly, remains unproven in court.