The Justice Department on Friday dropped its lawsuit seeking to make California set aside mail ballots associated with roughly 20,000 registered voters it suspected were noncitizens, ending that emergency effort while the state continues counting the Nov. 3 election.

The government’s dismissal notice, filed Nov. 6 in federal court in Los Angeles, said the requested separation would no longer be possible by a scheduled Nov. 13 hearing. It maintained its concern about illegal voting, while arguing that the passage of the election and the processing of ballots had eliminated the relief it sought.

The withdrawal leaves California’s existing counting procedures in place. It does not establish that the people on the disputed list voted illegally, nor does it resolve every federal challenge to the state’s voter rolls. The immediate outcome is narrower: a failed attempt to change how election officials handle a group of ballots during an election has ended.

The government says the remedy is no longer available

The federal filing described the proposed remedy as temporarily segregating mail ballots until citizenship could be confirmed. It argued that by the time the district court held its next hearing, challenged ballots would already have been mixed with other ballots and could no longer be separated. The notice invoked the rule allowing a plaintiff to dismiss before an answer or summary-judgment motion has been filed.

That account explains the department’s stated procedural reason for withdrawing. It is different from conceding that its voter list was inaccurate or that every legal argument had failed on the merits. The government continued defending its objective in the notice, even as it ended this particular case. Its filing said it was evaluating other ways to prevent what it described as dilution of lawful votes.

Courts refused an emergency change

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Friday statement laid out the unsuccessful sequence: an initial Ninth Circuit appeal on Oct. 26, the district court’s Oct. 28 refusal of a temporary restraining order, another appellate rejection on Oct. 30, and the Supreme Court’s denial of emergency relief on Nov. 2. The federal dismissal notice independently confirms the Supreme Court denial.

In his court order, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found serious constitutional, statutory and practical problems with the requested intervention. He emphasized the role of states and Congress in regulating elections and the risk that a late change would prevent eligible citizens from having their votes counted. The order denied immediate relief rather than completing the later evidentiary process.

A disputed list remains central

Carter questioned the reliability of the government’s database matching and its explanation of how people were identified as likely noncitizens. His order described the danger of false matches when administrative databases contain different identifying information or were updated at different times. It also noted that the government had not sufficiently explained important matching rules and confidence thresholds.

The planned special-master review was intended to examine how the list had been assembled, according to Courthouse News. Dismissal ends that scheduled inquiry within this case. Bonta characterized the withdrawal as an effort to avoid scrutiny; that is the state attorney general’s interpretation. The federal government instead said timely relief had become unavailable. Those competing explanations should not be treated as interchangeable findings of fact.

Counting continues under the existing timetable

The state’s report issued Nov. 5 said counties had counted 8,906,017 ballots and estimated another 4,816,722 remained. Those figures are a dated snapshot, not a final turnout total or a count of disputed ballots. Officials described the remaining work as the normal canvass, including tallying, auditing and certification.

The Secretary of State said mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within seven days must still be processed. Counties must send state and federal contest returns to the state by Dec. 4, with statewide certification scheduled for Dec. 11. Thus, election-night totals and the end of this lawsuit are separate from completion of the official count.

The state cautioned that the frequency of updates varies by county and that officials have up to 30 days after Election Day for the canvass. The outstanding-ballot figure is compiled from county estimates, so it should not be read as a precise prediction of the final total. The published deadlines also explain why counting after Tuesday is expected under California’s procedures, rather than evidence by itself of a change in the rules.

Other enforcement efforts continue

The department said Friday it would continue pursuing suspected election-law violations through other cases, the Associated Press reported. It also supported a separate lawsuit alleging inadequate removal of ineligible voters from California’s rolls. Ending the ballot-segregation case therefore does not represent a general withdrawal from election enforcement or the wider dispute over registration checks.

The practical distinction is between investigating a specific alleged violation and imposing a new handling rule on thousands of ballots during an ongoing election. Carter’s order raised concerns about both the evidence offered and the disruption the requested remedy could cause. Friday’s dismissal preserves the existing process without supplying a final, voter-by-voter answer about the list that prompted the confrontation.