WASHINGTON — In a significant legal defeat for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Monday swiftly rejected an emergency request to force California to isolate up to 20,000 mail-in ballots that federal officials alleged could have been cast by noncitizens.
The high court issued a brief order denying the request without providing an explanation or a recorded vote. The decision came in the midst of a frantic flurry of election-related litigation, with the justices acting so rapidly that they bypassed the typical procedure of asking California officials to file a formal response before ruling.
The Trump administration had sought to intervene in California’s electoral process, arguing that federal law prohibits voting by noncitizens and that the state must take extra precautions to ensure ballots from potentially ineligible individuals were not counted. However, California officials pushed back, maintaining that noncitizen voting is already strictly prohibited under state law and that the federal government’s underlying data lacked credibility.
The administration’s push has been met with consistent skepticism in the judiciary. In a related case over the weekend, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to cease issuing threats of prosecution against California election officials, which the administration had been using to pressure states into verifying voter citizenship through federal databases.
Legal experts and state officials have frequently challenged the administration’s claims regarding the prevalence of noncitizen voting, noting that such occurrences are statistically rare. Similar federal attempts to flag voters have faltered; for instance, when the government previously asserted that 185 noncitizens were registered to vote in Nevada, state officials discovered that all individuals on the list were, in fact, U.S. citizens.
Beyond the legal hurdles, there are significant logistical barriers to the administration’s request. Under California’s established ballot processing procedures, identifying specific ballots once they have been submitted is virtually impossible. Election officials verify signatures against registration records and then strip identifying information from the ballot before it is processed for counting, ensuring the anonymity of the vote.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled against the administration prior to the Supreme Court’s intervention, held that there was no indication that Congress intended for federal statutes regarding noncitizen voting to override the authority of state election laws.
The administration has long maintained that it possesses the grounds to intervene in local election management based on federal prohibitions against noncitizen participation. President Trump has frequently alleged, often without providing evidence, that millions of noncitizens participate in U.S. elections. Today’s ruling marks the latest in a series of setbacks for those efforts, reinforcing the principle that the administration of elections remains firmly within the purview of state and local jurisdictions.
Disclaimer: This content is auto-generated for informational purposes only.
Source: Read Original News
