The Trump administration Monday made a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, as it seeks to stop 20,000 mail-in midterms ballots from being counted in California over fraud concerns. In an emergency appeal, the U.S.
Department of Justice urged the justices to intervene immediately, after an Appeals Court rejected efforts to sideline the ballots belonging to people the federal government says could be noncitizens. John Sauer asked for an injunction requiring California to keep the challenged ballots separate while the case proceeds. The appeal does not ask for the potential ballots to be thrown out entirely.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. DOJ, the Los Angeles County Clerk's office, and California's Secretary of State for comment via email Monday afternoon. The dispute between the federal government and California election officials grew out of an effort to compare voter registration information with immigration and other records.
According to the Trump administration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) used a publicly accessible version of the state's voter roll, supplemented by an investigative database. After USCIS tried to eliminate known citizens, its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate manually reviewed remaining names, followed by another review by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The government alleges that the process produced more than 20,000 people who appeared to be registered to vote in California, despite potentially being noncitizens. It then provided a list to California's Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, and the Los Angeles County Clerk, Dean Logan, October 13. While the federal government has not confirmed whether the 20,000 people are noncitizens or if they voted at all, it has asked their potential ballots be set aside until definitive answers can be reached.
District Court and a U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the government's request, with the first finding the federal government lacked standing on an issue which is largely left up to the states to manage. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said the government likely had a case, but had not provided enough evidence to show it would supper irreparable harm if an injunction was not issued.
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