Supreme Court Lets California Count Every Ballot: the Election-Eve Bid to Set Aside 20,000 Votes Fails in One Sentence
The justices denied the Justice Department's emergency request hours after it was filed, with no public dissent and no explanation — the third court in a row to refuse to segregate the ballots of voters the administration says are likely noncitizens.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Trump administration's election-eve attempt to force California to set aside mail-in ballots cast by more than 20,000 registered voters whom federal officials allege are likely noncitizens, Reuters reported. The justices denied the Justice Department's emergency request just hours after it was filed, in a brief one-sentence order that offered no explanation — as is common in emergency matters — with no justice publicly dissenting. The court did not even ask California for a response, a step Reuters noted usually signals serious consideration of an emergency case.
The list of more than 20,000 voters was amassed by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to California and Los Angeles County officials, and the Justice Department sued on October 15, claiming the state is unlawfully blocking enforcement of the 1996 federal law that makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. The administration demanded that California separate the challenged ballots and not count them until the voters are verified as citizens, arguing in its Supreme Court filing that once the ballots are commingled with lawful ones, there is no way to get them back. California answered in court papers that its safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust and that the suit threatens to deprive 20,000 people of their right to vote based on vague accusations, with a list-building process it called flawed and likely rife with errors; Reuters noted that multiple studies and state audits show ineligible voting, including by noncitizens, is rare.
Monday's order was the administration's third straight loss on the question. U.S. District Judge David Carter denied the request on October 28, writing that never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the executive branch, and warning that if the executive can discount votes on unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the administration on Friday, emphasizing the state's power over election procedures. After Monday's ruling, California Governor Gavin Newsom called the decision a welcome sight for all Americans and said Californians can feel secure that the state will carry out a free and fair election, while acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter had said earlier in the day that the administration would continue pursuing every available legal avenue to protect the integrity of elections.
For Miami-Dade voters, the ruling changes nothing about Tuesday — and that is the point of it. The Constitution assigns the running of elections to the states, and Florida's procedures, like California's, stay in Florida's hands: polls open Tuesday at 7 a.m. at assigned precincts and close at 7 p.m., and ballots are counted under the state's own rules. The stakes behind the fight are national: California holds 52 House seats, more than any other state, and Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take the House majority that Tuesday's voting will decide.
