US Supreme Court turns down Trump bid to block California ballots

The US Supreme Court has turned down an emergency appeal from the Trump administration seeking to halt the counting of thousands of ballots in California ahead of the midterm elections.

In a brief, one-sentence ruling released on Monday, the justices dismissed the Justice Department's application for an injunction. The federal government had sought an order requiring local election administrators to separate roughly 20,000 ballots belonging to registered voters it claimed might not be United States citizens.

The decision effectively concludes the federal effort to block those votes from being tallied alongside other ballots. It upholds previous determinations by two lower federal courts that had similarly denied the administration's demands.

Federal officials had contacted California authorities last month, pressing both the secretary of state and election administrators in Los Angeles County to segregate ballots from individuals on a targeted government list. Homeland Security personnel later distributed notices warning local staff of potential criminal penalties if the disputed ballots were not kept apart.

Justice Department attorneys argued in court filings that including illegitimate ballots would dilute lawful votes. However, California election administrators strongly contested the government's data, arguing that the identification list was deeply flawed and risked disenfranchising properly registered citizens. Officials also stated that attempting to locate and separate specific ballots in the middle of active voting operations was practically impossible.

A federal district judge had previously condemned the administration's actions in strong terms. District Judge David Carter described the intervention as part of a pattern of election interference, writing that the executive branch had never previously attempted to coerce local authorities into discarding their constitutional voting systems right before an election.

California represents the nation's largest electorate, counting approximately 23 million registered voters. State election records showed that more than six million postal ballots had already arrived by Sunday evening.

The legal clash unfolds as voters nationwide cast ballots in midterm contests that will decide political control of both chambers of Congress for the remainder of President Donald Trump's term. The administration's challenge aligns with longstanding claims by Trump regarding widespread unlawful voting and the security of mail-in voting procedures, assertions that independent studies have consistently shown to lack evidence.