Supreme Court Denies DOJ Bid to Halt California Ballots Before Vote

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a final appeal from the Department of Justice on Monday evening. The request sought emergency intervention to stop California from counting ballots for voters the federal government believes are noncitizens. The court issued the ruling just hours before Tuesday's Election Day.

The Justice Department claims it identified 20,000 likely noncitizens on California's voter roll. It argued that these individuals' ballots should be segregated until their citizenship status is verified. Lower courts had already rejected this request, leading the department to seek injunctive relief from the high court in a last-minute filing.

District Judge David Carter, a Clinton appointee, previously described the federal action as a broad pattern of attempted election interference. A divided Ninth Circuit panel later denied the emergency stay. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez, appointed by Trump and Biden respectively, wrote that altering rules on the eve of an election carries a material risk of disenfranchisement. They cited the Purcell principle and the National Voter Registration Act, which restricts systematic voter removal within 90 days of a federal election.

Judge Patrick Bumatay, a Trump appointee, dissented from the Ninth Circuit decision. The panel's majority relied on the Constitution's grant of election authority to states. They noted that creating a new system to separate ballots while voting is underway is infeasible.

Los Angeles County election officials dispute the size of the problem. They state that many names on the federal list correspond to inactive registrations or voters who were not mailed ballots. Data scientists from the University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project analyzed the list over the weekend. They found that 42% of the names do not appear on the current state voter roll. Their analysis also identified naturalized citizens on the list.

The Supreme Court's decision comes as the Justice Department escalates its conflict with state election officials. In recent weeks, the department sent subpoenas to California officials and warned of criminal prosecution for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday. That order bars the administration from threatening or coercing officials to stop processing ballots. The federal government has appealed that order.

The denial leaves California to proceed with its planned election procedures. The state will count ballots for the voters on the contested list unless further court orders intervene after the votes are cast.