Supreme Court leaves California ballots to state officials
Justices denied a late appeal by the Justice Department hours before Tuesday's election, allowing the state to proceed with its current voting process.
By Malik Salazar ·
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in a dispute over California voter rolls on Monday evening.
The denial came just hours before the Department of Justice filed its final request for emergency relief. Election Day is Tuesday.
The Justice Department argued that 20,000 likely noncitizens are currently on California's voter roll. The department sought an order to stop processing their ballots until citizenship could be verified. Lower courts rejected this plan, with a federal judge calling the federal actions a broad pattern of attempted election interference.
A divided panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on Friday. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez wrote that there was a material risk of disenfranchisement if the court granted the relief. They cited the Purcell principle, which advises against changing election rules right before an election. The panel also noted that the Constitution grants states authority over elections and that the National Voter Registration Act bars systematic removals of ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal vote.
Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from that Friday decision. He was one of three judges on the appellate panel. The other two were appointed by former presidents Clinton and Biden, respectively, while the two majority judges were appointed by former presidents Trump and Biden.
Data scientists from the University of California Los Angeles Voting Rights Project analyzed the Department of Justice list over the weekend. They were granted access through a court order in a separate lawsuit. Their review found that 42% of the names on the federal list do not appear on California's current voter roll. The analysis also identified naturalized citizens on the list. County officials noted that many individuals on the list did not have active registrations and were not mailed ballots.
The legal battle is part of a wider conflict between the federal government and California election officials. The Justice Department has sent subpoenas to state officials and reminded them of potential criminal prosecution for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday. That order bars the Trump administration from threatening or coercing local officials to stop processing specific ballots. The federal government has appealed that order.
