Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to block California ballots
The US Supreme Court declined on the eve of the midterms to stop California counting mail-in ballots the Trump administration claims were cast by non-citizens.
Washington — The US Supreme Court on Monday refused a last-minute Trump administration request to stop California counting more than 20,000 mail-in ballots, hours before polls opened in the midterm elections. The Justice Department had argued the ballots should be set aside because, it claimed, the voters who cast them are probably non-US citizens.
The court gave no explanation, which is customary for emergency applications, and the Guardian reported there were no noted dissents. The ruling came hours after the appeal was filed, and followed a federal appeals court's refusal of the same request on Friday, according to the South China Morning Post.
The dispute began in mid-October, when the Justice Department — run by Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal attorney — delivered a USB drive with a list of names to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento, gave them 48 hours to review it and threatened to sue unless the ballots were sequestered. Officials refused. The list had been compiled by the Department of Homeland Security, DW reported, and the administration had sought a "limited injunction" to "stop commingling suspected illegal ballots with legal ones".
Lower courts repeatedly sided with California. US District Judge David Carter, rejecting the initial suit, warned that singling out ballots would "wreak havoc" on the election, and wrote: "If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger."
California, which leans heavily Democratic and is not expected to be competitive for Trump's Republicans, told the courts the federal vetting process was likely flawed. An analysis ordered after a judge forced the Justice Department to share its list found thousands of US citizens on it appeared to be inexplicably flagged as ineligible. Judge Carter noted that people flagged as noncitizens in other states have repeatedly turned out to be naturalised citizens. Governor Gavin Newsom deployed election law experts, poll observers and a voter help line ahead of Tuesday's vote.
Early voting has run for several weeks, with hundreds of thousands of ballots already processed. Those votes will now be counted when polls close on Tuesday night — and the statewide tally will be the first test of how much the legal fight mattered.
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