White House seeks Supreme Court help on 20,000 California ballots

Approximately 20,000 mail-in ballots in California are at the center of a legal battle that reached the Supreme Court on Monday. The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal seeking to remove these specific ballots from the count before the midterm elections take place on Tuesday. This action follows a divided appellate court decision that previously rejected the federal request to set aside the votes.

The federal government argues that the voters associated with these ballots may not be U.S. citizens. Officials state that the ballots should be held until the status of the voters is verified. California election officials counter that the federal list is unreliable. They assert that it likely contains many individuals who are already citizens.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote that the Justice Department requested a limited injunction. The goal is to direct California to separate the disputed ballots while the legal case proceeds. Sauer noted that once the challenged ballots are mixed with lawful ones, the state cannot retrieve them. The administration views this separation as necessary to maintain the integrity of the vote.

State officials argue that the logistics of the request are impossible to execute at this stage. Voting in California has been open since early October. The state mails ballots to all roughly 23 million registered voters. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. Election leaders say that finding and isolating the specific disputed votes now would be difficult.

A district court judge initially denied the Justice Department's request. Judge David O. Carter, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, warned that segregating the ballots could disenfranchise citizens. He stated that if the executive branch can discount votes based on unproven allegations, the democratic process is in danger. A three-judge appeals court panel later upheld his order in a 2-1 decision.

The appellate panel included one judge appointed by Trump and one appointed by President Joe Biden who voted in favor of the state. A third judge, also appointed by Trump, dissented. He argued that California's refusal to separate the ballots encourages the violation of federal law. The Justice Department has previously asked an appeals court to intervene early but was unsuccessful.

The Supreme Court has granted emergency appeals to the Trump administration multiple times during his second term. However, the justices previously rejected the president's earlier push to restrict mail ballots ahead of these midterms. The court has not yet indicated when it will rule on this specific request.