WASHINGTON — A day before Election Day, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to intervene in its dispute with California over the state's voter rolls, seeking to block the counting of ballots from approximately 20,000 individuals the department identifies as likely noncitizens.
The appeal marks the latest escalation in a feud between the federal government and the state regarding the integrity of the voter rolls. The DOJ asserts it has identified approximately 20,000 "likely" noncitizens whose ballots should not be counted until citizenship can be verified.
Lower courts have rejected the DOJ's requests. A federal judge in San Francisco and a divided three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency applications, citing the Purcell principle, which discourages altering election rules close to an election, and constitutional provisions granting states authority to run elections. The Ninth Circuit majority also referenced the National Voter Registration Act, which bars systematic removal of ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
Data scientists at UCLA's Voting Rights Project, granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in a related lawsuit, found that 42 percent of the names do not appear on California's current voter roll. The same analysis found naturalized citizens on the list. The actual number of ballots in dispute is likely much smaller, as many individuals on the DOJ's list did not have active voter registrations and were not mailed ballots.
A federal judge in San Francisco also issued a temporary restraining order late Friday barring the Trump administration from threatening, intimidating or coercing election officials to demand they stop processing ballots of registered voters the federal government alleges are ineligible. The administration has appealed that order.
The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will agree to intervene, and it remains uncertain whether it would weigh in before Tuesday's Election Day.
