Politics

Supreme Court declines to set aside California ballots in election-eve ruling

Washington • November 3, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Editorial illustration: the marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building with a ballot drop box on its steps, scattered with autumn leaves

Editorial illustration — Press Pass USA

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined the Justice Department's emergency request to force California to set aside mail ballots cast by about 20,000 registered voters the Trump administration alleges may not be citizens — rejecting, on the eve of the November 3 midterm elections, a last-minute federal bid to change how those ballots are handled.

The court gave no reasons in its brief order, and none of the justices publicly dissented, according to USA TODAY. The decision leaves the disputed ballots to be processed with other ballots as Californians vote Tuesday, rather than segregated while the administration challenges their validity.

The Justice Department had asked the court to order California to separate any mail ballots cast by people on a federal list of suspected noncitizens and hold them uncounted until each voter's citizenship could be verified. The department argues California is impeding enforcement of the federal law that makes it a crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and said it had not yet had a full opportunity to prove its list is valid.

California countered that it already has safeguards to protect election integrity and called the process used to build the federal list "highly suspect." The state and Los Angeles County have argued the list is unreliable and that creating a new system to pull ballots aside while voting is already underway is not feasible.

Lower courts had already rejected the same request three times. U.S. District Judge David Carter refused on October 28 to order the ballots segregated, writing that "never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch." A divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals then declined the request on Friday, 2-1, finding "there is no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system" and warning of a material risk of disenfranchisement.

In dissent in the appeals court, Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay called the government's request reasonable, writing that it "would not cancel any vote but would allow time to verify the eligibility of suspected noncitizens."

The actual number of ballots in dispute is likely much smaller than 20,000, NPR reported: county election officials have found that many people on the federal list did not have active voter registrations and were not mailed ballots. Data scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles Voting Rights Project, who were given access to the list through a court order in another lawsuit, found that 42% of the names on it do not appear on California's current voter roll, and that naturalized citizens appear on the list.

Separately on Monday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to stop demanding that California election officials segregate ballots cast by people on its lists of suspected noncitizens, finding the lists flawed and including many people wrongly listed as noncitizens. "California may decide for itself what procedures to use for verifying the citizenship of registered voters," Boasberg wrote. "The Executive Branch lacks authority to unilaterally impose its preferred procedures."

The Supreme Court's order decided only the emergency request; it did not rule on whether any individual voter on the list is a noncitizen, and the underlying lawsuit over the ballots continues. The ruling comes as voters decide control of Congress in Tuesday's midterms.

Sources: USA TODAY, "Supreme Court rejects Trump attempt to set aside some CA ballots" (Nov. 2, 2026); NPR/WAMC, "The Supreme Court rejects a DOJ push to separate California ballots" (Nov. 2, 2026); Reuters, "US judge orders Trump admin to stop demands California remove suspected noncitizen voters" (Nov. 2, 2026).