WASHINGTON/The HINDU — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration's emergency request to set aside approximately 20,000 California mail ballots from voters flagged as likely non-citizens, coming on the eve of pivotal midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for the last two years of President Donald Trump's second term.
The high court refused to intervene in a case involving 20,000 people the Republican administration flagged as likely noncitizens on California's voter rolls. The decision came without the court asking California officials to respond, as is common in emergency decisions, and provided no reasoning for the rejection.
It was the latest in a flurry of election-related litigation the day before the midterm elections. Lower courts had consistently ruled against the administration, with a district court warning that segregating the ballots would "wreak havoc" on the midterm elections and erode trust in the democratic process. A 2-1 appeals court panel upheld this order, with one judge appointed by former President Donald Trump and another appointed by former President Joe Biden voting in favor, while a third Trump-appointed judge dissented, arguing that California's unwillingness to separate the ballots encouraged the "violation of federal law."
California election officials had argued that identifying and separating the disputed ballots at this stage would be logistically impossible, as hundreds of thousands of ballots had already been processed. More than 6 million ballots had already been returned out of approximately 23 million registered voters in the state, where all registered voters are mailed a ballot.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, called the appeal "reeks of desperation and is another attempt to undermine our elections and trample on the rule of law." The Justice Department acknowledged its list of suspected non-citizen voters was not entirely reliable. During a hearing, Judge Trina Thompson pressed Justice Department attorney Kenneth Kao who conceded there was "a high error rate" in the data.
In a separate ruling, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found the administration's last-minute demands likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which commits authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone. The Supreme Court had previously rejected Trump's attempt to restrict mail-in voting across the country in September, even though it has sided with his administration in other emergency appeals.
Reacting to the decision, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on social media platform X: "The Court rejected Trump's emergency request without even asking the other side to respond. Democracy won." The ruling marks another setback for the administration, which has faced repeated defeats in its efforts to verify voter eligibility through emergency court orders. The midterm elections proceed with the status quo intact regarding California's ballot counting process.
