Supreme Court rejects bid to separate California mail ballots

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to set aside up to 20,000 California mail-in ballots that federal officials said might have been submitted by noncitizens, ending a last-minute effort to intervene in the state’s vote count before Tuesday’s midterm elections.

The justices issued a brief order without explaining their decision. They acted only hours after the administration filed its request and, in an unusually swift move, did not first ask California to respond, NBC News reported. A federal judge and an appeals court had also ruled against the administration.

The Justice Department wanted California to separate ballots from voters on a list compiled by the Department of Homeland Security until officials could verify their citizenship. The department argued that once those ballots were mixed with others, they could not be identified and removed if the voters proved ineligible.

California disputed the reliability of the list and warned that setting aside the ballots could disenfranchise eligible voters, including potentially thousands of U.S. citizens. State officials also said separating the ballots would be nearly impossible. Noncitizens are already prohibited from voting under California law.

Voting in the state began in early October. Ballots were mailed to around 23 million registered voters, and hundreds of thousands had already been processed, according to Al Jazeera. NBC News reported that, after election officials verify a mail ballot by comparing its signature with voter registration records, they discard details identifying the voter before counting the vote. That makes it impossible to identify such votes retroactively, the outlet reported.

A federal judge rejected the administration’s request last week, citing concerns about the list’s accuracy. “If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” Judge David Carter wrote, according to Al Jazeera. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also rejected the request, saying there was no evidence Congress intended the federal ban on noncitizen voting to override state election laws.

The dispute is part of a broader administration effort to press states to check voters’ citizenship, including through a federal database. The administration says the federal prohibition on noncitizen voting gives it grounds to intervene, although local officials administer elections. In Nevada, federal officials said they had identified 185 registered voters who were noncitizens; the state said all 185 were citizens, NBC News reported.

The administration separately warned California election officials that they could face prosecution if they allowed noncitizens to vote. A federal judge on Saturday ordered the Justice Department to stop making those threats, NBC News reported.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that noncitizens vote in large numbers in U.S. elections. Experts say noncitizen voting is rare.