The Trump administration asked the United States Supreme Court on Monday to intervene in a last-minute fight over California mail ballots, seeking an order that would require the state to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters whom federal officials allege may not be US citizens.
The Justice Department filed the emergency request one day before the 3 November midterm elections, which will decide which party controls Congress. It asked the court to direct California to separate any mail ballots cast by people on a federal list from other ballots, and not to count them until each voter’s citizenship has been verified. The department argued that once challenged ballots are mixed in with lawful ones, there would be no way to retrieve them.
The list was assembled by the Department of Homeland Security and sent to California and Los Angeles County officials. California has called the list highly suspect and unreliable, and state officials say it likely includes many people who are US citizens. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, who were given access to the list under a court order, found that 42 per cent of the names on it do not appear on California’s current voter roll, and county officials have found that many of those listed did not have active registrations and were not mailed ballots, so the number of ballots actually in dispute is likely far smaller than 20,000.
Lower courts have so far sided with California. On 28 October, US District Judge David Carter rejected the Justice Department’s request, saying the administration had failed to show it used a credible process to build the list and warning that never before had the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state into abandoning its own constitutional election procedures. On 30 October, a divided panel of the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals refused the request by two votes to one, saying there was no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the whole system, and citing the longstanding principle against changing election rules close to an election. Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented, calling the government’s request reasonable.
The administration says federal law barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections allows it to act, and it has made identifying alleged noncitizen voters a priority this year, despite such cases being rare. California counters that the Constitution gives states, and Congress, responsibility for running federal elections, not the executive branch. A federal judge in San Francisco also issued a temporary restraining order late on Friday barring the administration from threatening or coercing election officials over the ballots, an order the government has appealed.
It is not yet known whether the Supreme Court will intervene, or whether it will act before Election Day. The justices previously rebuffed an administration effort to restrict voting by mail ahead of the midterms, in September, and elections law expert Rick Hasen of UCLA has described the latest filing as a “Hail Mary petition” seeking an extraordinary remedy close to an election. The allegation that the voters on the federal list are noncitizens remains disputed and unverified.
Sources: Reuters, “Trump administration takes California ballot fight to Supreme Court”, 2 November 2026, https://wixx.com/2026/11/02/trump-administration-takes-california-ballot-fight-to-supreme-court/ ; Associated Press, “Trump administration asks Supreme Court to intervene in California ballot case”, 2 November 2026, https://www.tmj4.com/politics/america-votes/trump-administration-asks-supreme-court-to-intervene-in-california-ballot-case ; USA Today, “Trump asks Supreme Court to get involved in CA ballot fight on eve of election”, 2 November 2026, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/11/02/trump-supreme-court-california-ballots-noncitizens/92520880007/
