The Trump administration took its fight over California’s election all the way to the Supreme Court on Monday, hoping to force state officials to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots it claimed were linked to likely noncitizens.
The justices weren’t having it.
In a swift, one-sentence order, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s emergency request, delivering another major setback to President Donald Trump’s effort to intervene in how California conducts its elections.
The court offered no explanation for its decision, and no justices publicly dissented. It also rejected the request without asking California officials to file a response.
The administration had rushed to the nation’s highest court after losing in lower courts, arguing that time was running out to separate the disputed ballots before they became mixed with other votes and impossible to identify.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer warned that the government could lose its opportunity to challenge the ballots if California continued processing them.
“The only way to preserve the district court’s ability to grant relief to the United States after a full merits proceeding, therefore, is to segregate the challenged ballots now,” Sauer wrote, arguing that setting the ballots aside would not cause California any undue hardship.
But California officials and voting rights groups have challenged the accuracy of the federal government’s list, warning that it could wrongly identify eligible American citizens and put legitimate votes at risk.
The administration’s claim that more than 20,000 people were likely noncitizens was not proof that those individuals were ineligible to vote. California officials questioned the government’s data and methodology, while researchers examining the list found substantial discrepancies.
The stakes were especially high because Election Day was just hours away. More than 6 million mail ballots had already been returned in California, and election officials warned that separating the challenged ballots at this late stage could disrupt the counting process and disenfranchise eligible voters.
The Justice Department had argued that its request was simply a temporary measure to preserve the ballots while citizenship could be verified. California, however, maintained that the federal government had no authority to dictate how the state administers its elections.
The Supreme Court’s refusal leaves the administration without the emergency intervention it sought on the eve of Election Day.
For Trump, it is another legal defeat in an increasingly aggressive effort to challenge state election procedures just as millions of Americans are casting their ballots.
