The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal on Monday, a day before the midterm elections, asking the Supreme Court to set aside approximately 20,000 mail ballots in California. The administration argues that votes cast by individuals suspected of not being US citizens must be held until their eligibility is verified.
This move follows a rejection by an appeals court, which denied the government's request to pull these specific ballots from the count. State authorities are pushing back hard, calling the federal government's list of suspected non-citizens unreliable. They argue the data likely includes many legitimate US citizens.
The legal battle hinges on a rare but contentious issue: the administration’s effort to identify and disenfranchise suspected non-citizen voters. District Court Judge David O. Carter, who nominated the original order, warned against allowing unproven allegations to disrupt an ongoing election. Carter, a Clinton appointee, stated that the Executive branch discounting votes based on speculation puts democracy in danger.
California has been conducting its elections by mail since early October, sending ballots to all 23 million registered voters. Hundreds of thousands of these ballots are already processed and mixed into the general pool. The Justice Department is now seeking a limited injunction to stop this mixing for the disputed 20,000 votes while the legal fight continues.
The Supreme Court has previously rejected Trump’s attempt to restrict mail ballots ahead of the midterms, but the administration has secured other favorable outcomes through emergency appeals. With voting continuing across the state, the court’s decision on this limited injunction could determine whether these 20,000 ballots are counted alongside the rest or held in limbo.