Solicitor General Asks Supreme Court to Halt California Ballot Tabulation

The Trump administration requested emergency Supreme Court intervention on Monday to force California election officials to set aside mail ballots from 20,000 individuals identified as suspected noncitizens. The Justice Department filed the petition after a federal appeals court ruled earlier in the week that the votes should remain in the general count. More than 6 million mail ballots were returned statewide as of Sunday, according to the California secretary of state's office.

The legal dispute began when the Justice Department and Los Angeles County elections officials agreed on a list of 20,000 registered voters they believed were not U.S. citizens. The federal government demanded that any ballots returned by these individuals be segregated and held back from tabulation until their citizenship status could be verified. County officials expressed concern about the accuracy of the list and the risk of disenfranchising eligible voters.

U.S. District Judge David Carter issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday to block election workers from counting the disputed ballots. Carter, appointed by President Bill Clinton, stated that constitutional rights and democracy were at stake. He noted that individuals meeting California's registration requirements should not lose a core right due to unfounded allegations from a procedure prone to error.

A three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Justice Department's request for a preliminary injunction on Friday. The panel voted 2-1 to allow the ballots to be counted while the citizenship verification process proceeded. The administration then moved directly to the Supreme Court to preserve the lower court's ability to grant relief after a full merits proceeding.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer described the requested action as a modest remedy. In a filing, he wrote that once California mixes the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to retrieve them. He argued that segregating the ballots now is the only method to ensure the district court can act effectively if the government wins the case on its merits.

The high court received the request for emergency relief on Monday. The administration has not yet succeeded in convincing lower courts to require the ballots to be set aside. Voting in California has been underway since early October for a state with more than 23 million registered voters.