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Judge questions the Trump administration’s efforts to exert greater influence over elections process ahead of upcoming midterm vote.

A United States appeals court has expressed doubt over the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against California, which seeks to force the state to throw out mail-in ballots it has deemed likely to go to non-citizens.

Circuit Judge Mark Bennett said on Sunday that the three-judge panel would issue a decision as soon as possible, following a rare weekend oral argument.

But Bennett, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump, voiced concern that the lawsuit would not hold up to scrutiny.

He pointed to the Elections Clause in the US Constitution, which allows states — not the federal government — to administer elections.

“It seems to me that you want us to issue an injunction that is entirely inconsistent with the law that the California legislature has adopted pursuant to the Elections Clause,” Bennett told Justice Department lawyer Matthew Donnelly. “How can we do that?”

The case is part of a larger effort under the right-wing Trump administration to crack down on alleged non-citizen voting ahead of the crucial November 3 midterm elections.

On October 15, less than three weeks before the midterm races, the Justice Department issued a complaint targeting California, a left-wing stronghold.

It asked the federal court system to set aside thousands of mail-in ballots that the government says were sent to “likely non-citizens”.

The lawsuit indicates the Trump administration sent California officials a list of 20,000 names it believes are not eligible to vote, based on citizenship.

Trump has often pushed the discredited claim that the Democratic Party is benefiting from widespread voting by non-citizens.

California has long been one of the targets for his election misinformation.

Earlier this year, Trump denounced the state’s primaries after right-wing candidates like Los Angeles mayoral hopeful Spencer Pratt felt short of his expectations.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” he wrote on social media at the time.

He then announced that the state would be under investigation from the US attorney’s office.

Trump’s efforts have caused alarm, with critics accusing him of seeking to dampen voter turnout through intimidation and confusion.

The midterms will decide which party controls the US Congress, as well as key state and local positions.

Polls, however, predict steep odds for Republican candidates, given Trump’s souring approval ratings and dissatisfaction with issues like the cost of living and the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Voting rights advocates have warned that the Trump administration has not publicly revealed how it has compiled its list of non-citizen voters, and whistleblower reports have cast doubt on the accuracy of such lists.

In response to the October 15 lawsuit, California has countered that it has strong safeguards to prevent non-citizens from voting.

It also said that the Justice Department’s claims are based on dubious data.

“This is a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement earlier this month.

“We will continue to carry out free and fair elections in the Golden State — and call out this authoritarian as he tries every play in the dictator’s playbook.”

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has sued the state of California after the state missed a deadline to review a list of registered noncitizen voters sent to officials.

In the lawsuit, filed on Thursday in a US District Court in California, Department of Justice (DOJ) officials asked the court to prevent the state from counting mail-in ballots from voters on a list shared with the state that it said contained 20,000 noncitizens. The agency said it had attempted to “work collaboratively” with California to identify noncitizens registered to vote in the state, but “California made no serious effort to do so”.

The move follows a 48-hour deadline the DOJ gave California in letters sent to officials in several counties in the state on Tuesday, threatening further action if they did not review lists of allegedly ineligible voters the agency said it had shared.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the top state official tasked with administering elections, responded to the letters, saying in a three-page letter that she wanted to “set the record straight” on events that transpired since July. The senior California official maintains that the administration is demanding “unprecedented measures that threaten thousands of Californians’ right to vote, based on unverifiable information or methodology that you still fail to explain or provide”.

Weber said she was informed that the lists provided to local officials include the names of roughly 20,000 individuals. Weber said no list was ever sent to her office. The department previously said it suspected “thousands” of registered voters of being noncitizens, and a lawsuit filed earlier Thursday by the Justice Department put the number at “tens of thousands”.

“Despite failing to send the list of alleged non-citizens to my office, you demand that we request transmittal of the list, review and confirm the citizenship status of each of the approximately 20,000 individuals on the list on the eve of an election and within a mere 48 hours,” she wrote. “This is an emergency of the DOJ’s creation.”

In a statement on Wednesday, election officials in Los Angeles County, one of the county offices that received the ultimatum from the DOJ, pointed out the threat was issued just 21 days before midterm elections. The county statement said it had received a thumb drive with the letter and a handwritten note with what appeared to be a password, but it would not attempt to access the drive because “we do not consider the device a secure medium”.

The county office said maintaining accurate voter lists was “a fundamental responsibility for our office” and that state laws clearly require that removing individuals be “based on verifiable information”.

Trump has repeatedly levelled the false claim that large numbers of noncitizens, who are legally not eligible to vote in federal elections, are casting ballots in Democratic-led states, including in California. State officials, including in California, have said the number of such voters is negligible and that the scale of the problem does not warrant intervention just weeks before elections, scheduled for November 3.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has sharply rebuked the DOJ lawsuit against his state, calling it a “sad, desperate attempt by” Trump to “suppress California voters just three weeks before Election Day”.

“Courts have made clear the federal government has no role in running state elections,” Newsom said in a statement. “We will defend free and fair elections in the Golden State and call out every authoritarian attempt to undermine our democracy.”

Trump has long falsely claimed that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election, blaming it on Democrats, despite the issue being a very rare occurrence.

Courts have pushed back on Trump

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Florida ruled that a federal law criminalising voting by noncitizens was unconstitutional, delivering a major setback for Trump administration efforts to pursue such cases against individuals.

The court ruled that, under the US Constitution, only individual states have the authority to set voter qualifications, and that each one had already criminalised such voting by anyone who was not a citizen. Thus, it was up to the state to prosecute such individuals. The DOJ has at least 45 such cases pending nationwide, where the accused could now raise the same objection brought up in the Florida ruling.

Another federal judge ruled this month that the DOJ unlawfully sought state voter rolls for cross-checking them against a controversial federal immigration database to identify ineligible voters. The Trump administration has often touted the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, but numerous reports have found it inaccurate and capable of flagging citizens as noncitizens. Forcing states to use such a database would be unconstitutional, the judge said.

In September, the US Supreme Court rejected a Trump administration effort to restrict mail-in ballots for the November 3 elections, which Trump argued were especially susceptible to misuse by noncitizens because states were failing to verify who was sending them.

Two dozen states, led by Democrats, filed lawsuits against the Trump administration over attempts to limit mail-in voting, including an executive order directing federal agencies such as the US Postal Service not to handle mail-in ballots without verifying the eligibility of those casting them.

According to the Election Assistance Commission, a bipartisan government agency, around 30 percent of all ballots cast in the 2024 elections were sent by mail. Mail-in ballots are even more widely used in many western states such as California.

WASHINGTON — President Trump says his administration will make one-time payments of $90 per person to help more than 20 million Medicare enrollees pay for their Part B premiums. It will cost about $2 billion.

Less than one-third of all Medicare recipients are eligible for the payments, which are expected to be sent out this week. Not eligible are roughly 35 million Medicare Advantage enrollees, millions of people with disabilities who get premium assistance and low-income Medicare recipients.

The election-year promise that the Republican president made over the weekend comes as the Nov. 3 midterms are fast approaching, with the cost of living and healthcare expenses among the top issues for voters.

Some questions and answers about the payouts:

Who will benefit?

Some 20.8 million people in the original Medicare Part B who are living in the United States, not receiving premium assistance from Medicaid or not paying an income-related monthly adjusted amount.

Medicare Advantage enrollees, who make up more than half of the eligible 64.2 million Medicare beneficiaries, will not receive a payment, according to KFF, a healthcare research nonprofit. Nor will 12 million low-income older adults and people with disabilities who get premium assistance.

The Part B program covers expenses such as doctor’s visits, ambulance services and lab tests. Total monthly costs generally start at about $200 and vary with income.

Allison Schuster, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the administration “is enabling Americans to take control of their health by putting money directly back in the hands of Medicare patients.”

When will the payments go out and how will they be disbursed?

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website, eligible beneficiaries will receive one $90 rebate this month, with most getting a direct deposit on or around Friday. Others will receive a paper check from the Treasury Department later in October.

Juliette Cubanski, director of KFF’s program on Medicare policy, said the payment will be automatic.

“As far as a benefit goes, people don’t have to call or sign up — it’s just money they receive directly, but not everybody on Medicare will receive this money.”

A White House fact sheet says people can call (800) MEDICARE ([800] 633-4227) to check their eligibility for the premium rebate. To check on payment status, people should call the Social Security Administration at (800) 772-1213.

What is the source of the money?

Payments will come out of the Medicare Improvement Fund created by Congress in 2008 and intended to make improvements to the Medicare fee-for-service program.

The fund was created to improve program management and conduct oversight of contracts and contractors, according to the Congressional Budget Office, but its purpose has expanded after various legislative changes.

This is not the first time the fund has been used.

President Obama’s administration, along with Congress, redirected $20 billion to expand healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

But under Trump, it is the first time that the fund has been used to directly pay recipients.

What are critics of the plan saying?

Critics of Trump’s promise characterize the $90 payments as a preelection stunt designed to sway voters rather than address structural problems in healthcare costs and administration.

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, said in a statement that “this is another desperate attempt by a failed president to escape Americans’ revulsion with his failed agenda, amounting to one tank of Trump-inflated gas.”

Trump recently promised $500 rebate checks to an estimated 1 million Obamacare enrollees across 30 states whom the White House alleged were overcharged by the Biden administration for some fees.

Cubanski said the Medicare rebate payments were being doled out when Americans were feeling the bite of higher food, energy and gas prices. Surging healthcare costs are only compounding those pressure, she said.

“This might be helpful for people but it might not go very far.”

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.