Trump Administration Takes the California Ballot Fight to the Supreme Court, Asking It to Hold More Than 20,000 Mail Ballots
The Justice Department filed an emergency request on Monday asking the Supreme Court to stop California from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 voters it alleges are likely noncitizens until each voter's citizenship is verified. A district judge and the 9th Circuit have already refused, and California says its safeguards are robust — one day before the midterms decide control of Congress.
President Donald Trump's administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily block California from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters who federal officials allege are likely noncitizens, Reuters reports, escalating a legal fight that could affect thousands of voters in Tuesday's midterm elections. The Justice Department's emergency request seeks to prevent counting of the disputed ballots until each voter's citizenship status can be verified, and asks the court to order California to separate any ballots cast by people on the list from other ballots.
"Once illegally cast ballots are counted and commingled with lawful votes, the resulting harm is impossible to remedy," the Justice Department wrote in its filing, as reported by Reuters. The list of about 20,000 voters was amassed by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to California officials and to Los Angeles County officials. The department sued in federal court on October 15, claiming California is unlawfully preventing enforcement of a 1996 law that makes it a criminal offense for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and arguing that California's position violates the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
Two courts have already refused the administration. U.S. District Judge David Carter in Los Angeles denied the request on October 28, writing, as reported by Reuters: "Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional elections procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch." The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused on Friday to block the ballots, emphasizing the state's power over election procedures and California's comprehensive system for canceling registrations shown to be ineligible, and warning that siding with the administration could result in disenfranchisement.
California has said its safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust and that the lawsuit threatens to deprive 20,000 people of their right to vote based on vague accusations, arguing in court papers that the administration's process for scrutinizing voter lists is flawed and likely rife with errors, Reuters reports. Reuters notes that multiple studies and state audits show ineligible voting, including by noncitizens, is rare, and that a Reuters investigation published in July found just 129 cases in which noncitizens had been charged with voting illegally since the 1996 law passed. The Supreme Court's handling of the emergency request will take into account the short time before Election Day; California holds 52 House seats, more than any other state, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to win a House majority.
