Supreme Court rejects Trump's bid to set aside 20,000 California ballots
The one-line order had no noted dissents. Two lower courts had already turned DOJ down.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned down the Trump administration's emergency request to make California set aside mail ballots from about 20,000 voters the Justice Department calls likely noncitizens. California does not have to separate those ballots as voting ends Tuesday.
The order was one line and unsigned, with no explanation and no noted dissents, CBS News reported. The court acted within hours of DOJ's filing and did not first ask California to respond, as it normally does, NBC News reported.
How the case got here
The request came in DOJ's lawsuit against California and Dean Logan, Los Angeles County's registrar-recorder and county clerk. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter rejected DOJ's request last week, finding the government's process for flagging voters "rife with uncertainty and errors," CBS reported. A divided Ninth Circuit panel refused to step in on Friday; the majority included a Trump appointee and a Biden appointee, the Associated Press reported. DOJ then asked the Supreme Court on Monday, the day before Election Day.
The list behind the request
DOJ argues that federal law bars noncitizen voting, which it says gives it grounds to step in. That is the administration's claim, and no court has acted on it. California officials say noncitizen voting is already illegal under state law and have questioned the accuracy of the federal list. The AP reported that DOJ itself concedes the list isn't fully reliable, and that state officials said finding and pulling the challenged ballots now would be logistically impossible. NBC reported that once signatures are verified, voters' identifying details are discarded before ballots are counted.
WorkersRights.News has reported on the errors lawyers found in DOJ's list and DOJ's push to punish them for it.
Who's affected
About 23 million registered Californians were mailed ballots, the AP reported, and more than 6 million had been returned statewide, according to CBS. Every voter on DOJ's list, citizen or not, faced having a ballot held back.
"This latest decision should put an end to the administration's attempt to disrupt California's elections," Attorney General Rob Bonta said, according to NBC. The White House and DOJ did not immediately respond to NBC's requests for comment.
The underlying lawsuit is still pending in the lower courts, the AP reported.
Sources
- NBC News: Supreme Court quickly rejects Trump effort to target alleged noncitizen voters in California
- CBS News (via Yahoo News): Supreme Court rejects Trump's request in California mail ballots dispute
- Associated Press (via Yahoo News): Supreme Court rejects Trump administration push to set aside thousands of California ballots
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