By Matthew Vadum
Contributing Writer
The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court on Monday to order California to sequester about 20,000 mail ballots the department says likely belong to noncitizens, a day before Election Day.
The emergency application comes after a federal district judge, and then the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, turned down the request.
“Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back,” the DOJ said in its new filing.
California officials dispute the accuracy of the list compiled by the DOJ.
The Trump administration has asked the nation’s highest court to direct California to temporarily set aside the ballots from individuals on its list, and hold off on counting them until the voters can be verified as U.S. citizens.
The DOJ stated that California had failed to meet a deadline to complete a review of the suspected noncitizens, some of whom the department said had mailed in ballots.
President Donald Trump has said on multiple occasions that states are not doing enough to prevent noncitizens from voting.
The U.S. Constitution gives states primary authority to administer elections, but the federal government enjoys some oversight.
Acting Deputy U.S. Attorney General Trent McCotter said California has “refused to work with the federal government to protect against noncitizen voting, which dilutes lawful votes,” so the DOJ filed an emergency application to require the state to segregate the mail ballots until the voters’ citizenship can be verified.
“We will continue pursuing every available legal avenue to protect the integrity of our elections and ensure federal law is enforced,” McCotter said in a Monday post on X.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Judge David O. Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled against the DOJ on Oct. 28, allowing the ballots to be counted in the Nov. 3 midterm congressional elections.
Instead of waiting for Carter to rule on the merits, the DOJ filed an emergency application with the 9th Circuit, asking the appeals court to block California from counting the ballots.
On Oct. 26, a three-judge panel of that court ruled 2-1 that it lacked jurisdiction to rule on the matter because Carter had not yet issued his ruling in the case.
The DOJ also appealed Carter’s Oct. 28 ruling to the 9th Circuit. On Friday, a panel of that court rejected on a 2-1 vote what it called the administration’s “invitation to contravene the Elections Clause by undermining the Constitution’s plain text.”
“If the United States believes different procedures are necessary for vote-by-mail ballots, we believe it should take that suggestion to Congress, not the courts,” the majority said.
“We discern no clear error — there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
