The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block California from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters the federal government claims are likely noncitizens.
The request comes one day before the midterm elections are set to take place. Solicitor General John Sauer’s filing asks the justices to instruct California to set aside mailed ballots cast by anyone on the federal list until each voter’s citizenship is verified.
From USA Today:
California said it already has safeguards to protect election integrity and the process the administration used to create its own list is “highly suspect.”
The Constitution gives states and Congress, but not the executive branch, responsibility for regulating federal elections.
The administration argues it is enforcing the law against noncitizens voting in federal contests.
But a judge on Oct. 28 rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to keep the ballots from being counted until the voters have been verified as citizens.
"Never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own Constitutional election procedures and bend to the will of the Executive Branch," wrote U.S. District Judge David Carter.
🚨BREAKING: The DOJ sued California for sending mail ballots to 20k people the Trump administration claims are likely noncitizens. The lawsuit comes after the DOJ threatened legal action if the state did not set aside cast ballots of those flagged until their citizenship status is confirmed.
— Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) October 15, 2026
The Trump administration argues that once a challenged ballot is commingled with lawful ballots, there is no way to retrieve it. This means that setting the challenged ballots aside is the only way to preserve the courts’ ability to grant relief after a full merits ruling.
This legal battle began in the summer when federal immigration authorities obtained California’s voter roll and compiled a list of suspected noncitizens. They initially flagged about 190,000 names before narrowing it down to just over 20,000.
The Justice Department presented the list to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan in October and gave them 48 hours to set the contested ballots aside. The agency sued after state and county officials refused.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied the DOJ’s request, concluding that it had not shown it used a credible process to build the list. A divided Ninth Circuit panel refused it as well.
In another ruling, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson prohibited the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from pressuring state election officials over the ballots.