20,000 California mail ballots caught in Supreme Court appeal before midterms

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court on Monday, seeking to remove approximately 20,000 disputed mail ballots from California’s midterm election count.

The request follows a divided decision by a lower appeals court that rejected the Justice Department’s bid to set these votes aside. The federal government argues that the ballots should remain uncounted until the voting status of the individuals can be confirmed. California officials counter that the list of suspected noncitizens is unreliable and likely contains many actual U.S. citizens.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the filing that the situation is urgent. "Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back," Sauer stated. The Justice Department is asking for a limited injunction to direct the state to segregate the ballots while the legal battle continues.

The case has already faced resistance in lower courts. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a Democrat nominated by President Bill Clinton, denied the initial request. Carter warned that the move could disenfranchise citizens in Tuesday’s midterm elections. "If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger," Carter wrote.

A three-judge panel at the appellate level upheld Carter’s order. Two judges, one appointed by Trump and one by President Joe Biden, voted to keep the ballots in the count. A third judge, also appointed by Trump, dissented, arguing that California’s refusal to separate the votes encourages a violation of federal law.

Voting in California has been underway since early October. The state mails ballots to all roughly 23 million registered voters. Election officials say that hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. They argue that finding and setting aside the specific challenged ballots at this stage would be logistically impossible.

The Trump administration has focused on identifying noncitizen voters this year, a demographic that is rare in elections. The Supreme Court has previously rejected the president’s push to restrict mail ballots ahead of midterms, though the administration has secured other emergency appeals during his second term.