The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to force California election officials to segregate and withhold 20,000 mail-in ballots over unproven non-citizen voting claims. The swift ruling arrived just hours before polls closed in the midterm elections, capping a streak of legal defeats for the Justice Department.
The high court acted without noting any dissents and without asking California officials for their formal views first, turning away a last-minute application filed by U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer on Monday morning. Sauer had warned the justices that ballots are already being counted under state law and argued that separating them later would be impossible once they mix with valid votes.
Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back.
John Sauer, U.S. Solicitor General, via CNBC
The administration framed its intervention as a modest safeguard for federal elections. Lower courts disagreed, and the Supreme Court’s order left those decisions standing hours before the final day of voting in the pivotal congressional races.
The 20,000-Name List and the Los Angeles County Audit
The legal standoff began in mid-October when the Justice Department delivered a thumb drive to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento. The drive contained a list of roughly 20,000 registered voters flagged as likely non-citizens, accompanied by a 48-hour deadline for local officials to sequester their ballots or face federal lawsuits.
BREAKING: The Trump administration appeals to the Supreme Court in a push to sideline 20,000 California mail ballots. https://t.co/kEDIoqb6YS
Election officials and voting rights advocates immediately questioned the reliability of the data. When Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of 200 voter registrations from the federal list, their preliminary findings revealed glaring inaccuracies.
In this case, this Office has been informed that the United States has identified more than 20,000 individuals who appear to be registered to vote in California based on publicly available information at the time that information was received, but who, in the United States’ view, are likely not U.S. citizens.
Local audits established that nearly 40 percent of the reviewed names appeared to belong to individuals born in the United States, while over 70 percent showed no record of ever having cast a ballot. Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County clerk and recorder, issued a public statement criticizing the agency’s opaque methods.
The Department of Justice has not provided the underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions that individuals identified in its records are ineligible to vote.
Dean Logan, Los Angeles county clerk and recorder, via The Guardian
During a separate federal court hearing in Washington, District Court Judge Trina Thompson pressed Justice Department attorney Kenneth Kao regarding the integrity of the data, asking directly if he would agree there was a high error rate. Kao conceded that it was a fair statement, explaining that the administration relied on the lists precisely to ask local registrars for help in verifying voter eligibility.
Federal District Court Rebuffs and Judicial Warnings
Before reaching the Supreme Court, the administration’s efforts met sharp rebukes from multiple federal judges. U.S. District Judge David Carter firmly rejected an earlier request to mandate ballot segregation, rebuking the executive branch for attempting to override state sovereignty on the eve of an election.
Photo: Vox
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.
Supreme Court rejects Trump's bid to sideline California ballots
U.S. District Judge David Carter, via The Guardian
Carter emphasized that individuals who meet California’s voter registration requirements must not be stripped of their voting rights based on unproven allegations derived from a flawed procedure. Echoing those concerns, Chief Judge James Boasberg ruled in Washington that the administration’s last-minute demands violated the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause, which reserves authority over election rules exclusively to states and Congress.
Meanwhile, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court rulings, pointing out that Congress never intended for the federal statute barring non-citizen voting to pre-empt established state election laws. The majority opinion invoked a precedent established by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in a 2013 ruling, affirming that the Elections Clause functions as a default provision investing states with responsibility for the mechanics of federal elections.
Broader Legal Actions and Prosecutions Across the Country
The California showdown mirrors wider federal efforts to intervene in state election administration ahead of the midterms. The Justice Department filed a similar lawsuit in Washington state and sued Alaska in an attempt to block the certification of the state’s Senate race.
Federal prosecutors have also initiated criminal charges against individuals accused of illegal registration. In California specifically, the Justice Department indicted 28 green card holders on voter fraud allegations.
Beyond civil complaints, the administration threatened local election workers with criminal prosecution if they processed ballots from allegedly ineligible individuals. Those threats prompted a federal judge to issue an order barring the Justice Department from intimidating election staff who refuse to halt vote processing.
