The Supreme Court has denied the Trump administration’s emergency request to force California to set aside 20,000 ballots linked by the Justice Department to people it alleges may be noncitizens. The brief order leaves lower-court rulings in place as the state continues counting votes.

For California election officials and voting-rights advocates, the dispute centered less on the principle that only eligible citizens may vote than on the reliability and timing of the federal government’s claims. State officials said the list supplied by the Justice Department contained errors and that separating ballots while voting was under way risked disenfranchising eligible voters. Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan said the department had not provided “the underlying evidence, source, or methodology” for its assertion that those named were ineligible.¹

The Justice Department took the opposite view, arguing that ballots cast by noncitizens could “debase or dilute valid votes.”² It had demanded that state and county officials isolate the ballots while those listed verified their citizenship, but California officials declined and the legal fight moved through federal courts.

The Supreme Court’s one-line order denied the administration’s injunction request, effectively ending its bid to disqualify the ballots before the election.² The decision followed rulings against the administration by a district court and an appeals court.

District Judge David Carter characterized the federal demand as an extraordinary intrusion into state election administration, writing that “never before in American history” had the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to compel state and local authorities to abandon their constitutional procedures.¹

The administration’s broader campaign has focused on alleged noncitizen voting, which it says requires stronger federal intervention. Its critics counter that available research and expert assessments describe such voting as extremely rare, and warn that unverified lists and late election demands can erode confidence in legitimate ballots.²