The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the Supreme Court to stop California from counting mail-in ballots that the Trump administration says were sent to likely non-citizens, according to CNBC. The request comes a day before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. CNBC's summary also says the department is appealing the dismissal of a lawsuit over Alaska's Senate election.
The administration has claimed that nearly 20,000 "likely non-citizens" received mail ballots in California. It sent the state its list on Oct. 12 and sued on Oct. 15, seeking to keep those ballots from being counted.
How the case reached the Supreme Court
U.S. District Judge David Carter rejected the department's request on Wednesday, Oct. 28. He wrote 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 elections procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch." Al Jazeera, citing Reuters, reported that the department appealed quickly to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court had earlier turned away an emergency petition on Monday, Oct. 26, saying lower courts had not been given enough time to weigh the matter. After Carter's ruling, the administration returned to the Ninth Circuit, which rejected the request again on Friday, Oct. 30.
Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez formed the majority. They wrote that the request would amount to "not merely ballot segregation, but ultimately both the cancellation of the ballot and the removal of voters from the voting rolls." They also said it would violate the Constitution's Elections Clause and risk disenfranchising eligible voters. Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, calling the request "reasonable."
The dispute over the list
California officials declined to set aside the ballots and asked for proof that the people on the list were non-citizens. The state says none has been provided. It has also said the department relied on "suspect data" and that its own safeguards against non-citizen voting are robust.
The accuracy of the list has been questioned elsewhere. Al Jazeera reported that Nevada authorities said in September that no name on a similar list sent to that state was correct. Democracy Docket reported that in Los Angeles County, one in four voters on the California list were born in the U.S. The Justice Department has not publicly responded to those findings in the material available.
Governor Gavin Newsom called the October lawsuit "a sad, desperate attempt by Trump to use his politicized Justice Department to try to suppress California voters."
Non-citizen voting in federal elections is illegal in all 50 states. California will elect 52 members of the House of Representatives on Nov. 3.
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