Justice Department Urges Supreme Court to Block 20,000 California Midterm Ballots

In the final days before the U.S. midterm elections, the Trump administration is making a last-minute effort to prevent more than 20,000 mail-in ballots in California from being counted, alleging that non-citizens are attempting to vote.

The U.S. Justice Department, led by former Trump personal attorney Todd Blanche, says it has compiled a list of non-citizens on California’s voter rolls. The federal government initially filed suit in mid-October based on those claims.

A federal district judge denied the request, cautioning that isolating specific ballots would “wreak havoc” on the election process and undermine public confidence in democracy.

“If the executive branch can discard votes and jeopardize an active election based on unproven allegations, our democracy is at risk,” wrote Los Angeles District Judge David Carter when rejecting the administration’s initial lawsuit in October.

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In its Monday filing with the Supreme Court, the Justice Department requested a “limited injunction” ordering California to “stop commingling suspected illegal ballots with legal ones” until voter eligibility is verified.

Early voting has been ongoing in California for several weeks, with hundreds of thousands of ballots already processed.

It remains uncertain whether the Supreme Court will issue a ruling in time to affect Tuesday’s election.

Analysis Indicates Thousands of Eligible Voters Appeared on Restricted List

The Department of Homeland Security compiled the voter list. In its response to the federal lawsuit, California defended its election integrity and argued that the administration’s method for identifying non-citizen voters was likely flawed and error-prone.

Last week, a separate federal judge ordered the Justice Department to share the list with an immigrant rights organization and a voting rights watchdog affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles.

A legal analysis found that thousands of U.S. citizens on the list appear to have been incorrectly flagged as ineligible to vote. Judge Carter noted that individuals recently marked as noncitizens on voter rolls in other states have repeatedly turned out to be naturalized citizens.

Trump’s Persistent Focus on Voter Fraud Allegations

For years, Trump has made unsubstantiated claims of widespread election fraud, despite repeated investigations showing such misconduct is extremely rare.

During this midterm cycle, Trump has focused on claims that non-citizens are attempting to vote, even though research and investigations have repeatedly debunked those assertions.

“Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to compel state and local officials to abandon their own constitutional election procedures and submit to the executive branch,” Judge Carter wrote in October.

California, the nation’s most populous state, leans strongly Democratic and is not expected to be competitive for Trump’s Republican Party in the midterms.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, an outspoken Trump critic, has warned the administration against interfering in the state’s voting process.

Ahead of Tuesday’s midterm voting, Newsom announced the deployment of election law experts, poll monitors, and a voter hotline to report any attempts at intimidation or interference.

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