Supreme Court Rejects Trump's California Ballot Fight: 20,000 Votes Will Not Be Set Aside on Election Eve
Hours after the Justice Department asked, the justices refused — with no dissent noted and no explanation — to force California to segregate ballots from 20,000 voters the administration says may not be citizens.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to force California to segregate midterm ballots cast by about 20,000 registered voters the Trump administration alleges may not be citizens, rejecting the Justice Department's emergency request on the eve of the Nov. 3 election and leaving the state's ordinary counting procedures in place for a vote that will decide control of Congress.
The court acted within hours of the filing, handed down only a brief order with no reasoning, and — in a sign of how the justices viewed the request — did not ask California to file a response before ruling, CNN reported. None of the justices publicly dissented. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had told the court the United States had identified more than 20,000 individuals who appear to be registered in California but who, in the government's view, are likely not citizens.
Every court below had already said no. U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected the request on Oct. 28, writing that never before in American history had the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional election procedures, and finding the administration had not shown a credible process behind its list. A divided appeals court followed on Friday, warning in its 2-1 decision that there was no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system; in dissent, Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay called the request reasonable, saying it would not cancel any vote but would allow time to verify eligibility.
The Justice Department sued California in October, arguing the state is impeding enforcement of the federal law that makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and it has warned election officials in all states they could be prosecuted if they knowingly allow noncitizens to vote. California answered that it already has safeguards for election integrity and called the process used to build the federal list 'highly suspect.' USA TODAY noted the president has alleged, without evidence, that noncitizens are influencing outcomes by voting illegally.
For New York voters, the ruling changes nothing about Tuesday: polls here open at 6 a.m. and the state's own procedures stand. But it settles the last Election Eve attempt to rewrite another state's counting rules from Washington, and it does so the same way the courts below did — by leaving the machinery of the election where the Constitution puts it, with the states, unless Congress says otherwise.
