Supreme Court Faces Midterm Test as Trump Demands Ballots Set Aside - Newsweek
The Trump administration made a last-minute appeal on Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court as it seeks to stop 20,000 mail-in midterms ballots from being counted in California over possible fraud concerns.
In an emergency appeal, the Department of Justice (DOJ) urged the justices to intervene immediately, after an Appeals Court rejected efforts to sideline the ballots belonging to people the federal government says could be noncitizens.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked for an injunction requiring California to keep the challenged ballots separate while the case proceeds. The appeal does not ask for the potential ballots to be thrown out entirely.
"Tomorrow is Election Day across our county, state, and country. Our focus is where it should be on ensuring a safe, independent, and secure voting experience -- and then accurately counting and certifying the election results in accordance with state and federal law," Dean Logan, LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, told Newsweek in a statement Monday.
"I visited voting locations throughout Los Angeles County over the weekend. Voters and election workers are not distracted by the outside noise and attempts to disrupt or sow distrust.”
Newsweek reached out to the DOJ and California's secretary of state for comment via email Monday afternoon.
The dispute between the federal government and California election officials grew out of an effort to compare voter registration information with immigration and other records.
According to the Trump administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) used a publicly accessible version of the state's voter roll, supplemented by an investigative database. After USCIS tried to eliminate known citizens, its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate manually reviewed remaining names, followed by another review by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The government alleges that the process produced more than 20,000 people who appeared to be registered to vote in California, despite potentially being noncitizens. It then provided a list to California's Secretary of State Shirley Weber and the Los Angeles County Clerk, Dean Logan on October 13.
While the federal government has not confirmed whether the 20,000 people are noncitizens or if they voted at all, it has asked their potential ballots be set aside until definitive answers can be reached.
A U.S. District Court and a U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the government's request, with the first finding the federal government lacked standing on an issue which is largely left up to the states to manage. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the government likely had a case but had not provided enough evidence to show it would suffer irreparable harm if an injunction was not issued.
After the District Court's decision October 28, Logan said the state's role in administering elections had been affirmed, referring to the court's order which called the government's claims "unfounded."
“Our office takes voter eligibility seriously, and any credible evidence of unlawful voting warrants appropriate review. But claims of unlawful voting must be supported by verifiable evidence, not assumptions,” he said in a press release.
In his appeal Monday, Sauer said that Congress had been clear that it is unlawful for any noncitizen to vote in any election, and that the executive branch uses a "multi-step review process" to identify immigrants who may have violated these rules.
He asked the Supreme Court to issue an immediate administrative injunction requiring California to set aside any ballots submitted by those on the list of identified persons while the court considers the application, and to issue a longer injunction while the lower court cases proceed.
Part of the argument for the appeal is that California allows mail-in ballots to arrive through November 10.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Gabe Whisnant and Anthony Murray.
