LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Justice Department asked Friday to dismiss its lawsuit seeking to stop California from counting mail ballots linked to roughly 20,000 voters whose citizenship it questioned, The Associated Press reported.

Federal officials said the ballots would be mixed with other ballots by the time the court could consider the request. Once processed, the ballots are anonymous. California officials disputed the accuracy of the federal list and said it included eligible voters.

A federal judge had declined to set the ballots aside before the election, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined emergency relief Monday. The department’s Friday filing asked to end the case without a ruling on the citizenship of people on its list.

The department said it would continue to pursue suspected election-law violations in other cases and filed in support of a separate lawsuit over how California maintains its voter rolls.