The U.S. Supreme Court has declined a last-minute request by the Trump administration to order California election officials to set aside more than 20,000 mail-in ballots. The administration argued that the ballots may have been cast by non-citizens and needed to be segregated ahead of the midterm elections.
Emergency Filing and Lower Court Rulings
On Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court, warning that once California mixed the contested ballots with lawful ones, they could not be recovered. The Justice Department maintained that segregating the votes would preserve judicial review without invalidating any legitimate ballots.
The Supreme Court action followed rejections from lower courts. Last week, lower-court judges dismissed the Department of Justice's demand, with one judge characterizing the attempt as pre-election interference. Despite the administration's emergency appeal just one day before polls closed, the high court denied the request to set the ballots aside.
