Supreme Court Rejects Trump's Election Eve Bid to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots
Hours after the Justice Department filed its emergency request, the justices declined to force California to segregate mail ballots cast by about 20,000 voters the administration alleges may not be citizens. No justice publicly dissented, and California's procedures stay in place for Tuesday's midterms.
The Supreme Court closed the door Monday on an Election Eve fight over who counts California's mail ballots. The justices rejected the Trump administration's emergency request to force California to segregate ballots cast by about 20,000 registered voters the federal government alleges may not be U.S. citizens, leaving the state's existing ballot procedures in place as voters prepare to decide races that will help determine control of Congress. The court issued a one-sentence order without explaining its reasoning, as is customary in emergency appeals, and none of the justices publicly dissented.
The administration filed the request Monday, arguing the ballots should be set aside until the voters' eligibility could be verified. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court the United States had identified more than 20,000 individuals who appear to be registered to vote in California based on publicly available information, but who, in the government's view, are likely not U.S. citizens. California answered that it already has safeguards to protect election integrity and that the process the administration used to create its list is, in the state's words, 'highly suspect.' The state automatically mails ballots to its approximately 23 million registered voters, and voting there has been underway since early October.
Every court to consider the case has now ruled the same way. U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected the Justice Department's request on October 28, writing that never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state to abandon its own constitutional election procedures. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals followed Friday in a 2-1 decision barring the administration from intervening in California's mail-in ballot counting, and the Supreme Court ruled Monday without even asking California for a response brief first. For Fort Myers voters, the ruling changes nothing about Tuesday's mechanics — Lee County polls run 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at assigned precincts — but it settles, for this election, the larger question of who runs it: the states.
