WASHINGTON \u00a0\u2014\u00a0Acting quickly and emphatically, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down the Trump administration\u2019s bid to set aside ballots from 20,000 California voters who the administration alleges may not be citizens.<\/p>\n
The justices dismissed the emergency appeal without comment or dissent \u2014 a rare rebuke for President Trump\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n
Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer had appealed Monday and said the court must \u201csegregate\u201d these California ballots before they are processed by state and local elections officials and counted. <\/p>\n
The appeal went to Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In the normal course, she could have asked California\u2019s lawyers to respond.<\/p>\n
Instead, the court issued a one-line order: \u201cThe application for injunction pending appeal presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dismissal continued a string of losses in election-related litigation for the Trump administration in recent days and marked a substantive rebuke to a signature campaign by the president and his supporters to force the administration\u2019s will on a state election as votes are being counted.<\/p>\n
It was cheered by California leaders. \u201cGlad SCOTUS agrees that Trump\u2019s attacks on California\u2019s elections are BASELESS and UNCONSTITUTIONAL,\u201d Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis latest decision should put an end to the Administration\u2019s attempt to disrupt California\u2019s elections through emergency court orders. But our work is not over,\u201d California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said. \u201cWe will remain vigilant and keep fighting back against federal efforts to undermine our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision left no clear path forward for the Trump administration\u2019s demands that the ballots be set aside in time to preclude their counting, which Justice Department attorneys appeared to acknowledge. <\/p>\n
Shortly before the Supreme Court\u2019s order, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the lead prosecutor in L.A. who argued the case before the lower district court, said the government\u2019s lawsuit would essentially be \u201cmoot\u201d if intervention wasn\u2019t prompt. \u201cThe time for action is now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The administration previously lost before a federal judge<\/a> in Los Angeles and twice at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals<\/a> in San Francisco. Those judges said that Trump\u2019s lawyers were wrong on the Constitution \u2014 that it reserved power over elections to the states and Congress, not the executive \u2014 and that their complaint came too late for this election. <\/p>\n California Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the administration\u2019s appeal as baseless after repeated losses in the lower courts, and the government\u2019s claim of an emergency as dubious given its own actions in recent days.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump and his administration have never understood what \u2018NO\u2019 means, and it appears after being told \u2018NO\u2019 three times last week they\u2019re still unsure. After they sat on this for more than three days, they now ask for \u2018emergency\u2019 relief on the eve of the election,\u201d Newsom wrote on X. \u201cJust another reason their claims are bogus.\u201d<\/p>\n After the Supreme Court\u2019s order, Newsom simply wrote: \u201cJustice is served.\u201d<\/p>\n In May, more than 23 million Californians were registered to vote, with registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans nearly 2 to 1. Still, Trump claimed without evidence last week that \u201cthere are hundreds of thousands of bad ballots, bad votes, in California. Millions, in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n More than 6.4 million ballots had already been cast as of Sunday, according to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber\u2019s office. Those ballots are already being counted, per California law.<\/p>\n In mid-October, the Trump administration sued<\/a> and said federal courts should require California and Los Angeles County to \u201cset aside vote-by-mail ballots from persons identified by the federal government likely to be non-citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawsuit was filed just days after Justice Department officials gave Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder\/County Clerk Dean Logan a 48-hour deadline to begin cooperating with federal authorities by setting aside ballots from about 20,000 voters the administration had determined may not be citizens. <\/p>\n Weber, Logan and a host of voter advocacy groups and election experts have questioned the reliability of the administration\u2019s list, which was compiled using a mix of voter data purchased from California and taken from commercial platforms, according to administration officials.<\/p>\n County officials and analysts with the UCLA Voting Rights Project have said the lists encompass U.S. citizens and others who are not registered to vote. A Justice Department attorney, in a separate case Monday, acknowledged the lists have a \u201chigh error rate.\u201d<\/p>\n Attorneys for the state argued that complying with the administration\u2019s demands while voting is already underway would be impossible without causing widespread disruptions to the election and would disenfranchise legitimate voters incorrectly swept up into the administration\u2019s unreliable lists.<\/p>\n Justice Department officials stressed that they were asking only for ballots from the flagged voters to be set aside while state and federal authorities work together to determine whether the voters are citizens \u2014 something they have said could be accomplished relatively quickly if the state would simply comply with its requests to collaborate.<\/p>\n They also said emergency intervention from the courts was necessary because California law allows ballots to be counted before election day, and once a ballot is cast in person or removed from its mail envelope, it cannot be resegregated from the vote total.<\/p>\n Federal law says that within 90 days of an election, officials may not \u201csystematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.\u201d<\/p>\n Separately, the Supreme Court also has repeatedly frowned on \u201clate-breaking, court-ordered rule changes\u201d involving elections.<\/p>\n Usually, federal laws are deemed to be the \u201csupreme law\u201d and override state laws that are in conflict. No one disputes that U.S. prosecutors may bring criminal fraud charges against noncitizens who violate a federal law by registering with a state to vote and casting an illegal ballot.<\/p>\n But election rules and procedures are different. The Constitution says \u201cthe Times, Places and Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state,\u201d unless Congress acts by law to \u201calter\u201d its regulations.<\/p>\n