The administration of President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to order California to set aside around 20,000 mail-in ballots that the Justice Department claims were submitted by people who are not eligible to vote because they are not US citizens.
The emergency request was filed on Monday, one day before the country’s midterm elections, after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s effort to block the ballots and subject them to additional scrutiny. The decision followed an earlier ruling against the government’s attempt to remove more than 20,000 votes from the count.
Both the appeals panel and a lower federal court cited the constitutional provision that gives states authority over their election procedures. In its ruling, the appeals court said that if the federal government believed different rules were needed for mail-in voting, it should take that proposal to Congress rather than the courts.
The Justice Department had filed its case on October 15 after identifying, together with the Department of Homeland Security, more than 20,000 people it considered possible noncitizen voters. The administration asked election officials to separate their ballots and verify their citizenship before counting them, but California challenged the reliability of the list and rejected the request.
David Carter, a judge in the Central District of California, had warned that the measure could undermine the state’s authority to run its elections and risk disenfranchising US citizens. He also said the proposal could deny a fundamental right to thousands of voters based on uncertain allegations and data that might contain errors.
California officials said separating the identified ballots would be difficult because ballots are disconnected from envelopes containing voter information during processing. They warned that the move could cause delays and uncertainty in the count.
The dispute between California and the White House has intensified as the elections approach. Governor Gavin Newsom has said he will deploy election-law specialists and observers across the state to “protect every vote” in response to the administration’s directive to place federal agents at polling locations. On Monday, Newsom wrote on X that the state would deliver its verdict on “the most corrupt president in US history.”
Sources: elDiario.es.