Supreme Court rejects DOJ bid to pause California ballots

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to intervene in California's upcoming election. The high court rejected the appeal on Monday evening, just hours before it was filed and days before Tuesday's Election Day.

The Justice Department argued that 20,000 likely noncitizens appear on California's voter roll. The department sought an order to set aside and stop processing the ballots of these individuals until their citizenship status could be verified. Lower courts have already rejected similar requests, citing the unreliability of the federal list.

Federal District Judge David Carter, a Clinton appointee, described the department's actions last week as a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference. A divided Ninth Circuit panel also denied the request on Friday. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez wrote that granting the relief carried a material risk of disenfranchisement. They noted that creating a new system to segregate ballots while voting is underway is infeasible.

The majority opinion cited the Purcell principle, which discourages changing election rules on the eve of an election. The judges also pointed to the Constitution's grant of authority to states to run elections. Additionally, the National Voter Registration Act bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election. Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the panel's decision.

The actual number of affected ballots is likely lower than the department's estimate. Los Angeles County officials found that many names on the DOJ list lacked active voter registrations and did not receive mailed ballots. Data scientists at UCLA's Voting Rights Project accessed the list through a court order in a separate lawsuit. Their analysis showed that 42% of the names do not appear on California's current voter roll. The team also identified naturalized citizens on the list.

The Supreme Court's decision leaves the conflict between federal and state election officials unresolved. In recent weeks, the Justice Department sent subpoenas to California election officials and warned them of potential criminal prosecution for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday. That order bars the administration from threatening or coercing election officials to stop processing ballots. The federal government has appealed that order.