The Trump administration has asked the United States Supreme Court to order California to set aside more than 20,000 mail-in ballots it alleges were cast by non-citizens, in an emergency application filed on Monday — one day before the US midterm elections.
The request asks that the ballots be segregated and held pending verification of the voters’ citizenship, rather than counted with the rest, Al Jazeera reported. The application goes to Justice Elena Kagan, who by default handles emergency matters arising from California. No deadline has been set for the state’s response, and it is not clear when the court will rule.
Two courts have already refused
The filing follows defeats at both levels below. A federal judge rejected the request last week, and a federal appeals court refused it on Friday. The Supreme Court itself turned down an earlier attempt to restrict mail-in voting in September.
In the district court ruling, Judge David Carter wrote: “If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger.”
California officials argue the list of suspected non-citizens is unreliable and that acting on it would disenfranchise eligible US citizens. They also say separating the ballots in question is now close to impossible, because hundreds of thousands of mail ballots have already been processed. Research has consistently found non-citizen voting in US elections to be rare.
How this reached Sri Lankan readers
Hiru News carried the story late on Monday night Colombo time, attributing it to foreign media. Its account sets the move against polling that shows the Democratic Party close to taking control of the US Senate, and describes the petition as questioning the transparency of California’s vote-counting and voter-registration processes.
Two differences between that account and Al Jazeera’s are worth stating plainly. Hiru attributes the application to Donald Trump personally; the filing is made by his administration, through the Justice Department. And Hiru’s report does not carry the 20,000 figure or the non-citizen allegation — which is the substance of what is actually being asked for. This desk has followed Al Jazeera on both points.
Hiru’s own English-language headline renders the request as asking the court to “reserve” the ballots. Its Sinhala text glosses the verb in brackets as (Segregate) — set aside, not reserve — and that is the reading used here.
Context
Americans vote on Tuesday 3 November in midterm elections in which control of both chambers of Congress is at stake. This desk reported on more than 53 million early votes cast ahead of polling day.
Not reported
Neither filing says which California counties the 20,000 ballots are spread across, how the administration compiled the list, or what would happen to the segregated ballots if the court granted the order and verification could not be completed. Neither gives a California government response beyond the state’s general objection, and neither reports whether any other state faces a similar application.
