Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots Over Citizenship Claims

On Monday, a day before the final day of voting in the midterm elections, the US Supreme Court turned away an emergency request from the Trump administration to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots in California. The ballots belonged to voters the federal government had flagged as likely noncitizens on the state's voter rolls. The court gave no reasons, and no justice publicly dissented. It also did not ask California officials to respond to the administration's appeal before ruling.

The administration had described the request as a limited step. Under its plan, the disputed ballots would be kept separate while officials verified eligibility, and legitimate votes would still be counted in the end. California officials countered that the federal list contained errors and could cost eligible voters their ballots. They also objected to the timing, noting that the request came only weeks before voting ended. And they said that identifying and separating the ballots at this stage would be logistically impossible.

The Justice Department itself conceded the list's weakness. At a hearing before US District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco, on whether to lift an order barring the administration from threatening to prosecute election workers who let potentially ineligible voters cast ballots, the judge asked Justice Department attorney Kenneth Kao whether there was a high error rate. "That's a fair statement," Kao answered, adding that the department wanted registrars' help verifying that these were all valid voters. Bill Essayli, the federal prosecutor overseeing the Justice Department's Los Angeles office, struck a different note at a news conference, saying it was not speculation or a theory that those on the list were ineligible. He later acknowledged the list could contain errors. Voting by noncitizens is rare in the US, though the administration made identifying suspected cases a priority this year.

The Supreme Court's order followed a run of losses for the administration in lower courts. District Judge David O. Carter rejected the Justice Department's request earlier, warning that separating the ballots could "wreak havoc" on the midterms and damage public confidence. "If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger," he wrote. A divided Ninth Circuit panel upheld his order 2-1. A Trump appointee and a Biden appointee formed the majority. The other Trump appointee dissented, arguing that California's refusal to separate the ballots encouraged a "violation of federal law."

On the same Monday, a separate federal ruling went California's way in part. Judge James Boasberg found that the administration's last-minute demands on California election officials likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which gives authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone. Later that day, though, he declined to issue another order restraining the administration, saying the Democratic groups that brought the suit lacked legal standing and that states and courts had already addressed the issue.

The scale of California's election explains why timing mattered. The state has voted by mail since early October and sends ballots to all of its roughly 23 million registered voters. According to Associated Press election data, more than 6 million had already been returned. In September the Supreme Court also rejected Trump's attempt to restrict mail-in voting nationwide, though it has sided with the administration in several other emergency appeals.

Governor Gavin Newsom posted on X that the court rejected the request without even asking the other side to respond, and that "Democracy won." Attorney General Rob Bonta said courts had now rejected the administration's attempts to interfere in California's elections four times, from the district court through the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court, and that the latest decision should end efforts to disrupt the state's elections through emergency court orders. Kristen Clarke, general counsel of the NAACP, called the challenge baseless federal overreach and voter suppression, and pledged to use every available tool against what she called a bullying campaign.

With voting closing and millions of ballots already in, the thing to watch is whether the administration tries further emergency appeals or presses its threats of prosecution against election workers.