Justices reject Trump request to withhold California mail ballots
Federal officials cannot remove state ballots without proving illegal votes
Overview
More than 20,000 California mail ballots will not be set aside after the rejected the ’s last-minute request before the midterms. The Justice Department identified voters it said were likely noncitizens through , then asked California to withhold their ballots until citizenship could be checked. California officials said the list was unreliable and could include citizens. A federal judge refused the request, warning that changing election procedures so late could disrupt voting and disenfranchise eligible voters. A upheld that decision, and the denied the in an unsigned order.1
The ruling lets California continue counting the ballots, but it does not settle the broader fight over voter-roll checks. The central legal issue is whether someone’s eligibility can be questioned based on a data match, or whether officials must first prove that a ballot was unlawfully cast. The case also tests how much power the federal government has over elections run by states, while highlighting the risk that efforts to prevent illegal voting could wrongly exclude eligible voters.4
Timeline
The Supreme Court declined to require California to separate the disputed ballots
In a one-line , the Supreme Court denied the Justice Department’s emergency request. The decision left the lower-court rulings in place and did not require California to isolate the ballots. It did not definitively resolve the broader dispute over voter-roll verification, but it preserved the legal distinction between questioning eligibility and proving that a ballot was unlawfully cast.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to order a limited hold on the ballots
The administration filed an emergency application seeking a rather than an immediate final ruling on every underlying issue. It asked the justices to require California to set aside ballots associated with the approximately 20,000 people until citizenship could be verified. The application arrived on the eve of the final day of voting in the midterm elections.
A divided Ninth Circuit panel upheld the refusal to separate the ballots
A 2-1 panel of the declined to require California to segregate the ballots while the dispute continued. The majority cited a material risk that eligible voters could be . The decision kept the district court’s ruling in effect and allowed the state’s ballot-counting process to continue.
Judge David Carter refused to order California to set aside the disputed ballots
U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected the administration’s request for an blocking the counting of ballots tied to the list. The court questioned the evidence and warned that changing election procedures so close to voting could disrupt the process. The ruling left California officials free to continue processing ballots under existing rules.
The Justice Department demanded that California withhold ballots linked to the flagged voters
The department asked California’s secretary of state and Los Angeles County’s top elections official to separate associated with people on the list. It sought to prevent those ballots from being counted until each voter’s citizenship could be confirmed. The request threatened to change ballot-processing procedures immediately before the election.
Justice Department identified more than 20,000 California registrants as likely noncitizens
The Justice Department said it sent California officials a list of more than 20,000 it believed were likely noncitizens, based on federal data and review. The list was disputed by California officials, and reporting and court filings indicated that some names were duplicates or appeared to involve U.S. citizens.