The department asked a court to halt California mail ballots.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to accelerate a lawsuit that would stop California from counting as many as 20,000 mail ballots the government says were sent to voters who are “likely noncitizens.” The New York Times and Reuters reported the request. It went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit before the trial judge had ruled. Judge David Carter had not decided by Thursday afternoon. He set a hearing for next week on an emergency order to hold those ballots out of the Nov. 3 count until citizenship could be checked. The department called his silence a “constructive denial,” and a filing cited the “critical and exigent nature” of the request.

The Times reported that the move jumped ahead of a lower court still considering last week’s emergency request, and that other efforts — forcing states to turn over voter rolls, and having homeland security agents interview recently naturalized citizens about their voting history — have been blocked. This note is Thursday’s appeal. It is not a ruling, and it is not a finding that the ballots belong to noncitizens.

A constructive denial.

The photograph is a mail ballot, not the courthouse. An arm in a black sleeve holds a yellow envelope out of a car window, toward a red box that reads Official Ballot Drop Box. No judge is in it. It is not Thursday’s filing.