The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday evening rejected an emergency request from the Justice Department to order California election officials to set aside mail-in ballots cast by individuals on a federal list of more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens. The high court issued its denial hours after the federal filing, leaving the administration without the emergency order it sought ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. The court did not provide an explanation for its decision, and no individual justice publicly dissented from the ruling.
The administration had urged the court to mandate that the disputed ballots be kept separate until officials could verify whether the voters were legally eligible. California officials opposed the measure, arguing that the federal list was inaccurate and erroneously included American citizens. Lower federal courts, including a district court and an appeals court, had previously denied the administration’s requests for similar relief.
Ahead of the Supreme Court’s ruling, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli stressed the urgency of intervention, noting that tight electoral margins in California mean unlawful ballots could potentially sway outcomes. “There are many close elections in our system here. We have elections that are decided by less than twenty votes within recent memory here in California,” Essayli said during a Monday news conference. “So every vote does matter. It doesn’t take many illegal votes to corrupt our elections, and every single one of the 34 people charged so far are all people who are on the list that we provided to the state of California.”
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter echoed those concerns on social media prior to the decision, writing that California had declined to collaborate with the federal government to safeguard against noncitizen voting. McCotter stated that the Justice Department sought to segregate the ballots associated with more than 20,000 likely noncitizens until citizenship could be verified to protect election integrity and enforce federal law.
Essayli clarified prior to the court’s order that the legal maneuver was not an immediate bid to discard ballots permanently. “It doesn’t mean that they won’t be counted,” he said. “It means that we’ll have an opportunity to present our evidence in court and make a determination on whether those ballots are legal or not. We’re not waiting for that injunction; we’re moving forward with criminal prosecutions.”
Alongside the legal filing, federal prosecutors announced criminal charges against six green card holders who allegedly registered or voted in federal elections. Among the accused is an Iranian national who allegedly voted twice in 2024 before submitting a citizenship application earlier this year, as well as a Canadian citizen accused of voting in the 2022 and 2024 elections. According to authorities, the Canadian citizen later submitted a voter registration cancellation request in 2025 acknowledging ineligibility, but subsequently applied for citizenship and allegedly claimed on the paperwork to have never registered or voted.
Federal authorities confirmed that 34 individuals featured on the list of suspected noncitizens have now been charged with election-related crimes. As of Monday afternoon, five of the six most recently accused suspects were in custody. “Illegally attempting to infiltrate and influence our political determinations is not only wrong, it’s a crime. It’s both a federal crime and a state crime,” Essayli said.
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow joined federal officials to announce local charges against one of the individuals on the list, emphasizing the necessity of local enforcement. “If we as state and local prosecutors ignore this problem and don’t enforce the law, we may as well just erase that requirement of citizenship from our constitution,” Dow said. “If you’re not a United States citizen, do not cast a ballot whether you’re registered or not. Election integrity is not a Republican or a Democrat issue, it is an American issue and a Californian issue.”
