The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down a last-minute request from the federal administration to sideline more than 20,000 mail-in ballots in California. The emergency appeal arrived on the eve of the midterm elections, stemming from allegations by the Justice Department that non-U.S. citizens were attempting to cast votes in the heavily Democratic state.
Hours after the filing, the nation’s highest court declined to halt California from counting the disputed votes or to order the state to stop commingling the flagged ballots with others. The decision leaves intact the ongoing processing of ballots in the country’s most populous state, where early voting has been underway since October and hundreds of thousands of votes have already been handled.
The underlying legal battle began in mid-October when the federal government filed a lawsuit relying on a voter list compiled by the Department of Homeland Security. The Justice Department, led by Todd Blanche, claimed to possess documentation identifying non-U.S. citizens on California voter rolls. That initial suit was rejected by U.S. District Judge David Carter.
In his October ruling, Judge Carter warned that singling out specific ballots during an active election would “wreak havoc” on the democratic process. “If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” Carter wrote at the time, adding that “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.”
State officials defended California’s election integrity, arguing that the federal government’s methodology for identifying non-citizen voters was likely flawed and erroneous. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to share its disputed list with an immigrant rights group and a voting rights watchdog based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Subsequent legal analysis of the list revealed that thousands of eligible U.S. citizens appeared to be inexplicably flagged as ineligible. Judge Carter noted that individuals recently flagged as non-citizens on voter rolls in other states have repeatedly turned out to be naturalized American citizens.
The dispute unfolds against a backdrop of long-standing claims regarding voter fraud. While multiple investigations have shown that illegal voting by non-citizens is exceedingly rare, the administration has repeatedly focused on the issue during the current midterm cycle. Voting rights researchers and independent investigations have frequently debunked these assertions.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, an outspoken critic of the administration, previously warned federal officials against interfering in the state’s voting procedures. Ahead of Tuesday’s voting, Newsom announced the deployment of poll observers, election law experts, and a dedicated helpline allowing voters to report any intimidation or interference attempts at polling locations.
