Supreme Court leaves California mail ballots in play ahead of midterms

The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to hold 20,000 mail ballots in California on Monday. The decision came one day before the midterm elections, which will determine control of Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump's second term. The administration argued that the voters on the list were likely noncitizens and asked the justices to set the ballots aside until their status was verified.

The high court did not provide a written explanation for its ruling, a common practice for emergency decisions. This outcome follows a similar move in September when the justices denied a broader effort by the president to restrict mail voting across the country. Despite these losses, the administration has continued to prioritize identifying noncitizen voters, a group that election officials describe as rare on state rolls.

California officials argued that the list provided by the federal government contained numerous errors. They warned that removing the ballots now would create logistical problems and could disenfranchise legal voters. The state has been mailing ballots to its approximately 23 million registered voters since early October. Hundreds of thousands of these ballots have already been processed by local election offices.

A federal district judge in Los Angeles also ruled against the administration's efforts on Monday. Chief Judge James Boasberg wrote that the executive branch likely violated the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution. That clause assigns authority over election rules to the states and Congress, not the president's office.

During a hearing, District Court Judge Trina Thompson questioned Kenneth Kao, a Justice Department attorney, about the accuracy of the data. When asked if there was a high error rate, Kao replied, “That’s a fair statement.” He added that the department asked for state registrars' help to verify the voters. Bill Essayli, the federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, expressed confidence that the people on the list were not entitled to vote, though he later conceded that errors might exist.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta called the appeal a desperate attempt to undermine the election. He stated, “It reeks of desperation and is another attempt to undermine our elections and trample on the rule of law.” Lower courts had previously sided with the state, with Judge David O. Carter warning that segregating ballots would wreak havoc on the process.

A two-judge majority on the appeals court panel upheld the lower court's order. One judge appointed by Trump and another by President Joe Biden voted to keep the ballots active. A third judge, also appointed by Trump, dissented and argued that California's refusal to separate the ballots encouraged a violation of federal law.