A federal judge on Wednesday denied the Department of Justice’s bid to force California to set aside mail ballots associated with more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens, rejecting an emergency intervention less than a week before the midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge David Carter, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, rejected the department’s request to require election officials to hold the flagged voters’ ballots until their citizenship could be verified. His decision leaves California’s existing ballot-processing procedures in place ahead of the Nov. 3 election.