In brief
The Court rejected an emergency petition from President Trump’s Department of Justice filed on October 15, after a lawsuit alleged that over 20,000 registered voters in California were noncitizens. The ruling came hours before seeding ballots in a midterm race, returning to the state the authority to continue counting. Trump’s campaign and a deputy attorney general urged the court to stop the count, invoking alleged unlawful voting, but the justices found the evidence insufficient. The outcome leaves the legal status of the ballots, and the broader fight over voter eligibility, unresolved.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a last‑minute request from President Donald Trump’s administration to pause California’s counting of more than 20,000 mail‑in ballots it said may have been cast by noncitizens, keeping the state’s electoral process on schedule for the November 3 midterm elections. The Court declined the emergency petition before polls opened, underscoring its role in safeguarding the electoral process.
The complaint was filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 15, claiming that a list it supplied to California election officials showed more than 20,000 potentially noncitizen voters registered in the state. The DOJ asked the state to verify those names and withhold the ballots until citizenship status was confirmed. The lawsuit was presented to the Court as a last‑minute effort to halt the vote count.
Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter’s letter, shared by Trump on the Truth Social platform, asserted that “knowingly facilitating noncitizen voting in federal elections is ‘unlawful,’” and threatened “that California election officials ‘will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!’” The letter underscored the administration’s claims that the ballots in question could undermine the integrity of the election.
“Knowingly facilitating noncitizen voting in federal elections is ‘unlawful,’” said a letter from acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter, shared by Trump on Truth Social.
Several federal judges had previously denied the DOJ’s requests, ruling the challenges unconstitutional. The Los Angeles Times had reported that the DOJ’s list lacked a sufficiently transparent verification methodology, making it impossible for California officials to reject ballots based solely on unverified records. The Court cited similar concerns in its rapid decision to decline the emergency petition.
California Governor Gavin Newsom warned that, if the federal government continues to seek broader authority, it could obtain search warrants to seize ballots and other election materials, potentially disrupting the state’s vote‑counting and certification process. The Governor said the state’s procedures must remain intact for the fairness of the election.
While the Supreme Court’s ruling keeps the 20,000 ballots in play, the broader legal battle over voter eligibility and the DOJ’s claims over noncitizen voting continues in lower courts. The administration’s future steps—whether further judicial appeals or alternative legal avenues—remain to be seen, and the question of how these ballots will ultimately be treated in the final vote tally hangs in the balance.
Only the facts available in the news coverage leave these questions unresolved: the Court’s refusal to block the count, the DOJ’s claims of noncitizen registration, and the legal and procedural uncertainty surrounding the ballots that could influence the outcome of the midterm election.
