Supreme court rules against Trump over bid to force California to set aside ballots

Justice department had ordered state to segregate and not count 20,000 ballots from people it claims are non-citizens

The supreme court on Monday ruled against the Trump administration and its attempts to force California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people that the justice department claims are non-citizens. The ruling follows several lower courts siding with California officials, who argued the federal government was seeking to interfere in state elections.

California and the Trump administration have been in a legal standoff over the past few weeks following the justice department’s claim that 20,000 non-citizens were on the state’s voter rolls. The DoJ delivered a USB drive to Los Angeles and Sacramento election officials in mid-October with the names, giving only 48 hours for officials to review the list and threatening to sue if the ballots were not sequestered until those listed could verify their citizenship. Election officials refused, leading to a series of courtroom battles.

The justice department’s claims faced immediate pushback from state officials and voting rights groups, who questioned how the agency compiled the list and accused the Trump administration of a ploy to cast doubt over midterm elections. The justice department refused to provide details on its methodology and analysis from election officials found numerous suggestions the list contained inaccuracies.

“The Department of Justice has not provided the underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions that individuals identified in its records are ineligible to vote,” Dean Logan, Los Angeles county clerk and recorder, said in a statement after receiving the list.

The fight between the Trump administration and California officials escalated over recent weeks and subsequent court rulings. The administration has threatened to prosecute election officials if they process ineligible non-citizen ballots, a move experts say would have no legal basis. The Trump administration has also opened a criminal investigation in California to pursue claims of non-citizen voting, as well as begun subpoenaing election officials.

US district judge David Carter previously rebuffed the administration’s request to segregate ballots in a ruling on 28 October. Carter, who was nominated to the bench by Bill Clinton, wrote in his decision about how the administration’s move to interfere in California’s vote was unusual and extreme.

“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,” Carter wrote.

The Trump administration’s demands are part of a larger effort by the federal government to assert a greater role in overseeing elections and push claims of voter fraud committed by non-citizens. The justice department has made a similar demand to segregate ballots in Washington state, while also filing criminal charges against 28 green card holders in California that the DoJ accuses of fraudulently registering to vote and casting illegal ballots.

Trump has also made vague promises to issue a $1m reward to anyone whose reports of voter fraud lead to an arrest or conviction. Data and experts have shown that ineligible non-citizen voting is extremely rare.