WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s final bid to involve the Supreme Court in the 2026 midterms focuses on California, asking the justices to order the state to segregate as many as 20,000 ballots pending verification of voter eligibility.
The request, filed Monday as an emergency application in United States v. California, stems from a list of over 20,000 names transmitted to California on October 13. The Justice Department claims these individuals are likely noncitizens who are nonetheless registered to vote.
California election officials conducted a preliminary review of a sample of 200 names from the list. Their findings indicated that nearly 40 percent of the sampled individuals were born in the United States and are almost certainly citizens. Additionally, 56 percent of the individuals on the list either canceled their registration or have inactive registrations, and over 70 percent have never voted in California.
The effort mirrors a controversy earlier this year in Nevada. The Trump administration initially claimed that as many as 16,000 noncitizens appeared on that state’s voter rolls. When the administration later flagged a list of supposed noncitizen voters for Nevada officials, only 185 names appeared, and the state determined all 185 of those individuals are citizens.
Legal analysts have identified several complications with the administration’s position. The federal statute cited, which makes it a misdemeanor for certain noncitizens to vote in federal elections, does not require states to segregate ballots but merely empowers the federal government to bring criminal charges against an individual noncitizen who votes illegally. A separate federal law requires states to complete any program to systematically remove ineligible voters from the rolls no later than 90 days prior to a federal election, which may render compliance with the request illegal given the timing. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Scanlan v. Coalition for Open Democracy (2026) advised federal courts should ordinarily not alter election rules on the eve of an election. Furthermore, Judge Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, argued in an opinion that California could not comply with a segregation order because the list does not contain the information necessary to identify voters, the state lacks an established system for segregating ballots, and attempting to create one now risks shutting down the election system. California also lacks the ability to verify voters’ citizenship status before the December 4 deadline for certifying results.
The 20,000 individuals identified represent a tiny fraction of California’s electorate, where just shy of 11 million people voted in the 2022 midterm elections. At this early stage of the litigation, Trump’s lawyers are not asking the Court to disenfranchise these voters but merely to set their ballots aside to determine citizenship. Should the administration prevail, legal analysts suggest it could enable future interference in elections such as 2028 by allowing the Trump administration to harass state election officials with fabricated lists while those officials are also trying to run an election.
Given the procedural and legal flaws in the case, it is unlikely the Supreme Court will rule in the administration’s favor. And even if it did, such a decision is unlikely to change the result of any 2026 race.
