Supreme Court leaves 20,000 California ballots in count

Twenty thousand ballots in California will remain in the official count for the November midterm elections. On Monday, the United States Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order denying the Justice Department's application for an injunction. The ruling comes one day before voters cast their ballots in a contest that will determine control of Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term. The high court's decision leaves intact the rulings from two lower courts that had already rejected the administration's request.

The dispute centers on a list of 20,000 registered voters in the nation's most populous state. In October, the Justice Department sent letters to California's secretary of state and the Los Angeles County Registrar. The letters demanded that ballots associated with these specific individuals be set aside. Federal officials alleged that the individuals were likely not United States citizens. Court documents described the administration's belief that these voters were non-citizens. The state has approximately 23 million registered voters, and more than six million postal ballots had been received by Sunday night.

California election authorities challenged the federal government's method for identifying the suspected non-citizens. They stated that the list provided by Washington contained numerous errors. State officials warned that eligible voters could lose their votes if the ballots were removed. They also noted that separating the ballots while voting was already underway was not feasible. A federal appeals court had rejected the government's request to separate the ballots on Friday before the Supreme Court acted.

The federal effort included direct pressure on local officials. About a week after the initial letters, armed Department of Homeland Security officials delivered notices to county employees throughout California. These officials threatened criminal charges unless the county separated the disputed ballots. The Justice Department argued in a 22-page brief that votes cast by non-citizens could undermine the value of valid votes. The legal battle is part of a long-running campaign by the administration against alleged voter fraud, a phenomenon that research indicates is extremely rare.

President Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of allowing immigrants to vote illegally. He has placed much of the blame for potential fraud on postal voting, a practice permitted in many states led by his political opponents. The Justice Department's application for the Supreme Court injunction was submitted to Justice Kagan, who referred the matter to the full court. The court's denial effectively ends the administration's effort to disqualify the disputed ballots before the general election.

District Judge David Carter sharply criticized the government's actions in a ruling last week. He described the federal move as an ongoing pattern of attempted election interference. Carter stated that the government's attempt to pressure state and local authorities into abandoning their constitutional election procedures immediately before an election was unprecedented in American history. The refusal to intervene now means the 20,000 ballots in question will be included in the final tally for California's congressional and state seats.