The Supreme Court on Monday, Nov. 2, rejected the Trump administration’s effort to require California to separate up to 20,000 mail-in ballots that federal officials alleged might be submitted by noncitizens. The decision left the administration with another defeat after lower courts also ruled against its request.
The justices issued a short order offering no explanation, acting just hours after the administration sought emergency intervention. The request was part of an unusual burst of last-minute election litigation. The court moved without first seeking a response from California, a step it ordinarily takes when considering such requests.
California officials opposed the Justice Department’s involvement, pointing out that state law already prohibits noncitizens from voting. They also questioned the reliability of the information the federal government was using to support its allegations about potential voters.
In a separate dispute, the administration warned California election officials that they could be prosecuted if they permitted noncitizens to cast ballots. On Saturday, a federal judge directed the Justice Department to stop issuing those threats. The administration maintains that a federal prohibition on voting by noncitizens gives it grounds to intervene, even though local officials exclusively administer elections.
The disagreement also centers on the relationship between federal and state election law. In ruling against the administration, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found no evidence that Congress intended the federal ban on noncitizen voting to override state laws governing elections.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, that millions of noncitizens vote illegally in American elections. Experts say such voting is rare. His administration has nevertheless pressed states to verify voters’ citizenship, including through checks using a federal database.
Those efforts have encountered several setbacks, including a dispute in Nevada over the status of registered voters. Federal officials said they had confirmed that 185 people on the state’s voter rolls were noncitizens. Nevada responded that every person identified by the federal government was actually a citizen.
In California, thousands of mail-in ballots have already been received and processed, limiting the possibility of tracing any individual vote afterward. Officials determine a ballot’s validity by comparing the voter’s signature with registration records, then remove identifying information before counting the vote. That process makes it impossible to establish retroactively which votes might have been cast by the people the administration alleges are noncitizens.
