The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday seeking to prevent approximately 20,000 California mail ballots from being counted until the citizenship of the voters associated with them can be verified.
The emergency appeal came one day before the November 3 midterm elections, after a federal appeals court rejected the administration’s request to set the ballots aside.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court for a limited injunction directing California to stop mixing ballots it considers potentially illegal with other ballots while the case continues. The federal government suspects the voters may be noncitizens and argues their ballots should not be counted until their status is verified.
A federal district judge previously rejected the Justice Department’s request, warning that separating the ballots could disenfranchise eligible voters and disrupt an election already underway. Judge David O. Carter wrote that allowing the executive branch to discount votes based on unproven allegations would put “democracy in danger.”
