The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a request from the Trump administration to temporarily stop California from counting mail-in ballots cast by more than 20,000 registered voters. Federal officials allege those voters are likely not US citizens. The ruling came on the eve of the US midterm elections, and the court acted within hours of the Justice Department filing its emergency request.
The decision ended the administration’s effort to block the ballots, which it said could have affected thousands of voters and created uncertainty about election outcomes. It was another setback for President Donald Trump as Republicans work to keep control of Congress in Tuesday’s midterms. California is the most populous US state and a Democratic stronghold.
Justice Department’s challenge to California’s voter rolls
The Justice Department sued in federal court on October 15. It argued that California was unlawfully preventing enforcement of a 1996 federal law that makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The department said the state’s actions violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which generally gives federal law precedence over state law.
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The list of 20,000 voters was compiled by the US Department of Homeland Security and sent to state officials in California and to officials in Los Angeles County. The administration wanted California to separate any ballots it considered unlawful from other ballots and to withhold counting them until the voters were confirmed as US citizens. In its request to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department warned that once the challenged ballots were mixed with lawful ones, they could not be recovered.
California disputed the federal case. The state said its safeguards against noncitizen voting were robust and that the lawsuit threatened to take away the right to vote from 20,000 people based on vague accusations. In its court papers, the administration said its process for checking voter lists for noncitizens was flawed and likely full of errors.
Judge Carter and appeals court refuse to intervene
US District Judge David Carter in Los Angeles denied the administration’s request on October 28. He said the federal government had never before, on the eve of an election, tried to force a state and local government to abandon its own constitutional election procedures.
“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch,” Carter wrote.
Carter also questioned the reliability of the administration’s data. He noted that people recently flagged by federal authorities as noncitizens on voter rolls in other states had repeatedly turned out to be naturalized US citizens. He warned that the executive branch could not discount votes over unproven allegations without endangering democracy.
“If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” Carter wrote.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, also refused on Friday to block the ballots. It stressed the state’s authority over election procedures and pointed to California’s comprehensive legal framework for protecting election integrity, including a system for cancelling registrations when a voter is shown to be ineligible.
Supreme Court order offers no explanation
The Supreme Court’s brief, one-sentence order did not explain its reasoning, which is common when the court handles emergency matters. No justice publicly dissented. The court also did not ask California to respond to the administration’s request, a step that usually signals serious consideration of an emergency case.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, welcomed the decision. He called it “a welcome sight for all Americans given the disgusting and dangerous attacks on our democracy by the federal government.”
“Tomorrow (Tuesday), Californians can feel secure in knowing the state will carry out a free and fair election — just as we’ve always done,” Newsom added.
Acting US Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said in a social media post after the filing that the government would keep pursuing every available legal avenue to protect election integrity and enforce federal law. The Constitution gives states the responsibility for running elections, although the federal government has some oversight. The lawsuit was a rare federal intervention in the voting process and signalled the administration’s willingness to contest election results in court.
The administration had already tried to restrict mail voting, a method used more often by Democratic-leaning voters, but the Supreme Court rebuffed that effort in September. On Sunday, a federal judge also dismissed the administration’s lawsuit concerning the US Senate race in Alaska. Multiple studies and state audits show that ineligible voting, including by noncitizens, is rare.
California has 52 House seats, more than any other state. Democrats need a net gain of four House seats to win a majority in the chamber.
