Supreme Court Keeps California Mail Ballots in Count Amid Midterm Election Push

The Supreme Court voted Monday to leave 20,000 California mail ballots in the count, rejecting the Trump administration’s request to set them aside while citizenship is verified. The decision arrives on the day before the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress for the final two years of the president's second term.

The conflict centers on a list of voters that the Republican administration flagged as likely noncitizens. The Justice Department asked the high court to isolate these ballots until the state could confirm the voters' status. California officials argued the list contained errors and that removing the ballots now would effectively disenfranchise legal voters who have already mailed in their votes.

The legal battle began earlier in the year when the administration prioritized identifying noncitizen voters, a group that is statistically rare. A district court judge initially denied the Justice Department’s request, warning that the move could disrupt Tuesday’s elections. The case then moved to an appeals court, where a 2-1 panel upheld the lower court's order. One judge appointed by President Joe Biden and another appointed by President Donald Trump voted to keep the ballots, while a third judge appointed by Trump dissented, arguing that California’s refusal encouraged violations of federal law.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to intervene without detailing its reasoning, a common practice in emergency matters. This follows a similar ruling in September when the justices rejected a nationwide push to restrict mail ballots. Despite this, the administration has continued to press its case, arguing that segregating the ballots is a modest request that will still allow legal votes to be counted later.

Federal prosecutors expressed mixed confidence in the data. Bill Essayli, the federal prosecutor for the Justice Department’s Los Angeles office, told reporters he was highly confident the people on the list were not entitled to vote. He later conceded there may be errors. During a separate hearing, District Court Judge Trina Thompson asked Kenneth Kao, a Justice Department attorney, if he agreed there was a high error rate. Kao responded, "That’s a fair statement," adding that the administration asked for help from registrars to verify the voters.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the appeal an attempt to undermine elections. He noted that voting has been underway since early October, with all 23 million registered voters mailed a ballot. Officials stated that hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed, making it logistically impossible to find and set aside the challenged ballots at this stage.

In a parallel ruling, Chief Judge James Boasberg found that the administration's last-minute demands violated the U.S. Constitution. He wrote that the Executive Branch likely violated the Elections Clause, which gives authority over election rules to states and Congress alone. The administration has faced a series of court losses in this effort, drawing criticism for waiting until weeks before the election to present a list it admits is not entirely reliable.