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The Supreme Court issued a one-line order denying the Justice Department’s application for an injunction pending appeal, according to the court’s filing referred by Justice Elena Kagan. This decision upholds earlier rulings from a federal district court and the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that had refused to require California to set aside the ballots. The order came hours after the administration filed its emergency request and contained no noted dissents or additional explanation from the justices.
US Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in the filing that federal law bars non-citizens from voting in federal elections and that the government was likely to prevail on the merits, SCOTUSblog reported. The Trump administration had identified more than 20,000 registered voters in California it described as likely non-citizens whose mail-in ballots should be segregated until citizenship could be verified. Lower courts found the process used to flag those individuals unreliable and noted that implementing such a system on the eve of the election carried significant risks of disenfranchisement.
California election officials questioned the accuracy of the federal list and opposed any last-minute changes to ballot processing, according to multiple accounts from Reuters and The New York Times. Governor Gavin Newsom said in response to the ruling that Californians can feel secure knowing the state will carry out a free and fair election just as it has always done. The state maintains some 23 million people on its voter rolls and had received more than six million mail-in ballots as of the prior Sunday, state data shows.
A federal district judge appointed by President Bill Clinton described the administration’s overall efforts as an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to coerce a state to alter its election procedures on the eve of voting, NPR reported. The 9th Circuit panel that rejected the request included judges appointed by both Trump and Biden and concluded that granting the relief could jeopardize the entire election in Los Angeles County. Multiple studies and state audits have long established that ineligible voting including by non-citizens remains rare, Reuters noted in its coverage of the dispute.
The Supreme Court action marks the latest development in the Trump administration’s legal campaign concerning state election administration ahead of the midterms that will determine control of Congress during the final two years of the president’s second term. The Justice Department has brought criminal charges against more than 200 individuals for alleged illegal voting in prior elections, according to CBS News. No clear path remained for further challenges to the ballots after the high court’s denial, The Los Angeles Times reported.
With Election Day occurring on November 3, the ruling ensures that all received ballots in California will be counted under standard state procedures without the requested federal intervention. The case had highlighted tensions between federal officials and the nation’s most populous state over voter roll maintenance and citizenship verification. California Secretary of State officials maintained that existing safeguards already prevent ineligible voting while protecting access for qualified residents.
