US Supreme Court rejects Trump administration bid to set aside 20,000 California ballots
The US Supreme Court on Monday, 2 November, rejected the Trump administration's last-minute request to force California to set aside the mail ballots of about 20,000 people the federal government claims are likely noncitizens. The one-line, unsigned order gave no reasons and showed no dissents. Two lower courts had already refused, and California officials say the federal list is full of errors and could disenfranchise eligible US citizens.
The US Supreme Court on Monday, 2 November, turned down the Trump administration's emergency request to make California set aside mail ballots from about 20,000 people that the federal government says are likely not US citizens. The decision came hours before Election Day.
"The application for injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied," the court said in a one-line, unsigned order. It gave no reasons and there were no noted dissents. The ruling leaves the lower court decisions in place and effectively ends the administration's bid to keep those ballots out of the count, the BBC noted.
The Justice Department had asked the justices to step in earlier the same day, after a divided federal appeals court refused to order the ballots separated. Last week, US District Judge David Carter had rejected the request for a temporary restraining order, saying the administration's process for identifying alleged noncitizens was "rife with uncertainty and errors", CBS News reported.
The administration told California and Los Angeles County officials last month that more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens were on the voter rolls and ordered their ballots held back until their citizenship was confirmed. It later sent lists to all 58 California counties. State and local election officials questioned the accuracy of the list, warned that eligible citizens could lose their vote and said separating ballots while voting was under way was not feasible.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued in the filing that "once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back", AFP reported. Voting by non-citizens in federal elections is illegal in the US, but confirmed cases are rare. California has more than 23 million registered voters, and more than 6 million mail ballots had already been returned before Election Day, according to CBS News.
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