WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to force California election officials to segregate more than 20,000 mail ballots from voters the federal government suspects may be noncitizens, delivering a significant setback to the administration’s efforts to intervene in state election procedures just one day before the November 3 midterm elections.
The unsigned order, issued November 2, provided no explanation for the court’s decision, and no justices publicly dissented. The ruling leaves in place lower court decisions rejecting the Justice Department’s attempt to prevent California from counting the disputed ballots until the citizenship status of the voters could be verified.
The decision follows a series of federal court defeats for the administration, including a ruling by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in Los Angeles and a divided decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, both of which raised concerns about federal interference in state election administration and the possibility of disenfranchising eligible voters.
The Justice Department had argued that California should be required to separate ballots associated with approximately 20,930 individuals it identified as potentially ineligible to vote because they were suspected noncitizens.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court that the administration was seeking a limited remedy to prevent potentially unlawful ballots from being mixed with legitimate votes while the courts considered the government’s allegations.
The administration maintained that once the disputed ballots were processed alongside other ballots, election officials would be unable to identify and remove them if subsequent proceedings established that they had been cast illegally.
California officials countered that the federal government’s list contained substantial inaccuracies and that imposing new ballot-processing requirements immediately before Election Day could jeopardize the voting rights of eligible citizens.
The dispute took on additional significance after UCLA researchers submitted a sworn declaration on October 31 identifying serious problems with the government’s underlying data.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision Monday, sharply criticizing the Trump administration’s attempt to intervene in the state’s election procedures.
“After repeatedly losing in the lower courts, the highest court in the land firmly slapped down the Trump DOJ’s baseless attack on California’s electoral process — not even entertaining it,” Newsom said in a statement.
“The third branch of government did its job, and that should be a welcome sight for all Americans given the disgusting and dangerous attacks on our democracy by the federal government,” he continued.
Newsom said the decision would allow California to proceed with Tuesday’s election without the additional ballot-segregation requirements sought by the Justice Department.
“Tomorrow, Californians can feel secure in knowing the state will carry out a free and fair election — just as we’ve always done,” Newsom said. “If you have not yet: vote, drop your ballot in a drop box, and feel good about exercising your constitutional right to vote.”
In the 29-page declaration, UCLA researchers Matt Barreto and Michael Rios reported that 8,880 of the 20,930 individuals on the government’s list, approximately 42%, could not be matched to California’s current voter registration records.
The researchers also identified 22 exact matches between individuals on the government’s suspected-noncitizen list and known U.S. citizens associated with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, along with 66 additional matches they considered highly likely.
The findings raised questions about whether the administration’s list could reliably identify individuals who were currently registered to vote, much less establish that they were not citizens.
The researchers emphasized that the government-provided data lacked California voter identification numbers, making it more difficult to match records accurately against the state’s voter registration database.
Their analysis compared the government list against approximately 23.2 million registered voters in California.
Although the inability to match a record does not necessarily establish that the individual was improperly included, the presence of known citizens on the government’s list provided evidence that the federal screening process could incorrectly identify eligible voters as suspected noncitizens.
The UCLA declaration was submitted in separate litigation involving CHIRLA and the Department of Homeland Security, rather than as part of the Supreme Court’s emergency proceeding. Nevertheless, the findings added to questions surrounding the reliability of the federal government’s allegations.
The administration’s legal effort began in mid-October when the Justice Department provided California election officials with a list of suspected noncitizens and demanded that ballots associated with those individuals be separated until their eligibility could be established.
Election officials declined, citing concerns about the accuracy of the information and their obligations under state and federal election law.
The Justice Department subsequently sued California, seeking an emergency injunction that would require election officials to segregate the ballots and prevent them from being counted pending verification.
On October 28, Judge Carter rejected the request, concluding that the administration had failed to justify the extraordinary relief it sought.
Carter also expressed concern about the unprecedented nature of the federal government’s effort to compel state and local officials to alter established election procedures immediately before a statewide election.
The administration appealed, but a divided Ninth Circuit panel also declined to intervene.
Judges Mark J. Bennett, appointed by President Donald Trump, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, appointed by President Joe Biden, rejected the government’s request. Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, another Trump appointee, dissented.
The majority expressed concern that the requested relief could interfere with election administration and threaten the voting rights of eligible citizens.
The court also addressed the constitutional division of authority over federal elections.
Under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, states establish the procedures governing congressional elections, subject to Congress’s authority to alter those rules through legislation.
The Ninth Circuit majority reasoned that the executive branch could not independently impose new election procedures simply because it believed additional safeguards were necessary.
The judges indicated that if the federal government wanted different rules for processing mail ballots, the appropriate avenue was congressional legislation rather than an emergency judicial order.
Bumatay disagreed, arguing that the administration’s request represented a reasonable effort to prevent potentially unlawful votes from being counted and preserve the government’s ability to obtain meaningful relief.
The Justice Department then turned to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to intervene before California completed processing the ballots.
The Supreme Court’s rejection leaves the lower court decisions intact but does not resolve the broader legal questions concerning federal authority over election administration or establish the citizenship status of individuals on the government’s list.
Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and the Justice Department retains authority to investigate and prosecute violations. The question before the courts was whether that enforcement authority justified compelling California to change its ballot-processing procedures based on the government’s disputed evidence.
The administration’s legal position also faced the practical difficulty of seeking emergency intervention after millions of Californians had already returned their mail ballots.
California has more than 23 million registered voters, and more than 6 million mail ballots had been returned statewide by Sunday, according to figures cited in reporting on the litigation.
The dispute is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to assert federal authority over state election procedures and investigate allegations of noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department has also sought voter information from election officials in other states, including Washington, where state officials have disputed the reliability of a separate federal list of suspected noncitizens.
The Supreme Court’s November 2 order means California election officials will not be required by the requested emergency injunction to separate the disputed ballots, allowing the state to continue administering the election under its existing procedures as voters head to the polls Tuesday.
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