In brief
In a ruling issued on November 2, the U.S. Supreme Court declined a last‑minute request by the Trump administration to stop California from counting a list of 20,000-plus mail‑in ballots tied to potential noncitizens. DOJ had sued California election officials on October 15, but the court found the evidence insufficient. The decision comes as federal judges and the Los Angeles Times have also questioned the DOJ’s methodology and California’s loyalty to election integrity.
In a swift decision on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a late emergency petition from the Trump administration to halt California’s counting of more than 20,000 mail‑in ballots that the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged were cast by noncitizens. The ruling was issued just hours before the midterm polls opened.
The DOJ’s complaint, filed on October 15, claimed that the state’s voter registrations included a large number of noncitizens and asked California to verify those registrations and withhold the affected ballots until citizenship could be confirmed. The court found the DOJ’s evidence insufficiently supported and denied the emergency request.
The Los Angeles Times had earlier reported that the DOJ list lacked a sufficiently transparent verification methodology, making it impossible for California election officials to reject ballots based on unverified records. Several federal judges had previously ruled the DOJ’s requests unconstitutional, a stance the Supreme Court echoed.
California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that a federal government push could extend to search warrants, potentially disrupting the state’s vote‑counting and certification process. Trump, through his Truth Social platform, shared a letter from acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter declaring that "knowingly facilitating" noncitizen voting in federal elections is unlawful, and threatened that California election officials "will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!" The letter and threat are reported only by Xinhua.
