Trump administration asks Supreme Court to separate California mail ballots

President Donald Trump's administration asked the US Supreme Court on Monday, November 2, to intervene in California's voting process by ordering the separation of more than 20,000 mail ballots. The request came a day before the midterm elections and rests on allegations that people without US citizenship are attempting to vote.

The Justice Department, headed by Trump's former personal attorney Todd Blanche, sought a limited injunction requiring California to keep ballots it considers suspect apart from other ballots while voters' status is verified. Early voting has been taking place in the state for several weeks, and hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. Whether the Supreme Court would act soon enough to affect Tuesday's election remained unclear.

The federal government first sued in mid-October, citing a list it said identified noncitizens registered to vote in California. Los Angeles District Judge David Carter rejected the department's request, warning that separating the ballots would disrupt the election and undermine public confidence in the democratic process. In his October decision, Carter also warned of the danger posed by executive efforts to discount votes on the basis of unproven allegations.

The Department of Homeland Security compiled the voter list at the center of the dispute. California challenged the reliability of the administration's methods in its response to the lawsuit, defending its election safeguards and arguing that the identification process was likely riddled with mistakes.

Last week, another federal judge required the Justice Department to provide the list to an immigrant rights organization and a voting rights watchdog based at the University of California Los Angeles. An analysis presented in a legal filing found that thousands of US citizens appeared to have been flagged as ineligible without explanation. Carter noted that voters identified as noncitizens in other states had repeatedly proved to be naturalized Americans.

The court fight follows years of unsupported election fraud allegations from Trump. Multiple investigations have found such fraud to be exceedingly rare. During this midterm campaign, he has focused on claims that noncitizens are trying to cast ballots, despite research and investigations repeatedly debunking those assertions.

California, the country's most populous state, is strongly Democratic and is not expected to be competitive for Trump's Republicans in the midterms. Governor Gavin Newsom, a vocal Trump critic, has warned the administration against interfering with voting in the state. Before Tuesday's election, Newsom announced that election law experts and poll observers would be deployed, alongside a voter help line for reporting intimidation or interference at polling places.