Court Restores Block on California Voter Probe

A ballot fight with more plot twists than a summer airport paperback. A Ninth Circuit panel paused the San Francisco judge's temporary restraining order, which blocked DOJ's requests to set aside California ballots. Hours later the full 11-judge court vacated that ruling and ordered a rehearing, so the block is back in place while everyone rereads the file. My editor would cut that plot as too far-fetched, and she'd have a point. The Supreme Court also turned down an emergency request to force California to set aside roughly 20,000 mail ballots flagged as likely noncitizens. Attorney General Todd Blanche says 63 people were charged with election crimes Monday. The press will call those stories unrelated, then spend a week trying to connect them.