A US federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens.

The court on Monday ruled 2-1 against Donald ⁠Trump’s ​justice department in the dispute, denying the administration’s demand that election officials segregate the thousands of ballots until people on the list could verify their citizenship. The justice department had given the California secretary of state 48-hours to carry out the order, which state election officials refused – leading to the lawsuit.

The decision by ‌the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals marks a setback in Trump’s attempts to assert ⁠a greater federal role in ​overseeing ​elections in ​the run-up to the 3 ​November midterms.…