A divided federal appeals court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s emergency bid to require California to separate mail-in ballots associated with roughly 20,000 people the Justice Department alleges are noncitizens, leaving the dispute to proceed in a lower court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the department had moved too slowly and improperly asked the appeals court to step in before U.S. District Judge David Carter could consider its request. Carter, a Clinton appointee, had scheduled a hearing for Tuesday afternoon in Los Angeles. “The United States failed to allow the district court adequate opportunity to consider its application for a Temporary Restraining Order,” the majority wrote, adding that the government’s claimed emergency was “at least in part” self-created. The ruling was procedural, not a final decision on the underlying dispute. The Justice Department argues that federal law barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections overrides California’s election procedures. The state has not been ordered to set aside the ballots, and the appeals panel’s decision does not resolve whether the department’s legal theory will prevail. Judge Mark Bennett, appointed by President Donald Trump, joined Judge Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by President Joe Biden, in rejecting the emergency appeal. Judge Patrick Bumatay, also a Trump appointee, dissented, saying he would have granted the government’s request. Bumatay argued that the federal government has a sovereign interest in protecting elections and that delays increase the risk that noncitizens’ votes could be counted in the midterms. Bennett, in a separate opinion, countered that the administration had offered “no workable plan” for carrying out the requested remedy without potentially catastrophic consequences for California’s ongoing election. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, welcomed the decision and accused Trump of attacking the Constitution and democracy. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration could ask the full Ninth Circuit to reconsider the case or take an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. The appeals court set a 7 p.m. Pacific deadline Monday for a request for rehearing by a larger panel. Whether Carter’s Tuesday hearing will go ahead remained unclear. The case puts federal election authority and California’s election procedures in direct conflict ahead of the midterm elections. For voters and election officials, the immediate question is whether the lower court will take up the requested ballot action—and whether any further appeals can be resolved before voting and counting are completed.