Trump Administration Seeks Supreme Court Order to Hold 20,000 California Mail Ballots
The emergency appeal follows a lower court rejection of the Justice Department's bid to exclude ballots from voters suspected of non-citizenship ahead of Tuesday's elections.
By Nadia Singh ·
The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court on Monday to halt the counting of approximately 20,000 mail ballots in California. The request seeks a limited injunction that would force state officials to set aside these votes while the legal dispute proceeds. This move comes one day before the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress.
The conflict began when the Justice Department argued that the ballots should be excluded because the federal government suspects the voters may not be U.S. citizens. California officials countered that the list of suspected non-citizens is unreliable and likely includes many verified citizens. A federal district court judge initially denied the Justice Department's request, warning that the demand could disenfranchise citizens during the upcoming vote.
The case moved to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a divided panel rejected the government's ask. Two judges, one appointed by President Trump and one by President Joe Biden, sided with the state. A third judge, also appointed by Trump, dissented, arguing that California's refusal to separate the ballots encourages violations of federal law. The lower court upheld the district judge's order to keep the ballots in the count.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that once California mixes the challenged ballots with lawful ones, the state cannot separate them again. "Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back," Sauer stated. The Justice Department has prioritized identifying non-citizen voters this year, a demographic that officials describe as rare.
Voting in California began in early October. The state mails ballots to all roughly 23 million registered voters, and hundreds of thousands have already been processed. California election officials say it is logistically impossible to find and remove the specific challenged ballots at this stage. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Democrat nominated by President Bill Clinton, noted that if the executive branch can discount votes based on unproven allegations, the democratic process is at risk.
The Supreme Court has granted emergency appeals to the Trump administration several times in this term. However, the justices previously rejected a similar effort by the president to restrict mail ballots ahead of these midterms. The Court has not yet indicated when it will rule on the current petition.
