Supreme Court declines to block 20,000 California mail ballots ahead of midterms

The Supreme Court declined to pause the counting of 20,000 mail ballots in California, leaving the votes in the tally for the midterm elections held on Tuesday. The decision resolves a legal bid by the Trump administration to segregate these ballots until the citizenship status of the voters could be confirmed. The high court did not issue a written explanation for the ruling, a common practice in emergency matters decided during the holiday season.

The dispute centers on a list of 20,000 individuals on California voter rolls that the Justice Department flagged as likely noncitizens. The administration argued that setting these ballots aside was a modest procedural step to ensure only legal votes were counted. It sought to hold the ballots until officials could verify the identity of each person on the list. The court's refusal means the ballots will proceed through the standard processing pipeline alongside millions of other votes in the state.

California election officials opposed the move, citing logistical difficulties. The state mails ballots to all roughly 23 million registered voters, with voting beginning in early October. By the time of the Supreme Court's decision, hundreds of thousands of ballots had already been processed. Officials stated that locating and separating the specific challenged ballots at this stage would be effectively impossible without disrupting the entire count.

Lower courts had previously blocked the federal government's attempt to alter the election process. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, warned that segregating the ballots would cause operational chaos. He noted that if the executive branch could discount votes based on unproven allegations, the stability of the democratic process would be at risk. A three-judge panel on the appeals court upheld his order in a 2-1 vote.

The Justice Department maintained that its data was reliable, though it acknowledged potential inaccuracies. Bill Essayli, the federal prosecutor for the Los Angeles office, stated at a news conference that he was highly confident the individuals on the list were not entitled to vote. However, he later conceded that errors might exist in the documentation. The department had waited until weeks before the election to present the list to state officials.

During a separate hearing, District Court Judge Trina Thompson questioned the reliability of the government's data. She asked Kenneth Kao, a Justice Department attorney, if he agreed there was a high error rate in the records. Kao responded that it was a fair statement, explaining that the department requested help from state registrars to verify the voters. This admission of potential error complicated the administration's argument that the ballots should be immediately removed from the count.

The ruling comes as the midterm elections determine control of Congress for the final two years of the current term. The Supreme Court had previously rejected a broader push by the administration to restrict mail ballots nationwide in September. The California case represents the latest in a series of election-related legal challenges filed in the days leading up to the vote. The outcome allows the state to proceed with counting all mailed ballots according to its existing procedures.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta described the federal appeal as an attempt to undermine the election results. He argued that the demand to separate the ballots late in the process disrupted the standard workflow. The state's position is that the executive branch overstepped its authority by interfering with state election rules. With the Supreme Court staying out of the case, California officials will finalize the results using the ballots already in their possession.