Supreme Court turns away Justice Department bid to set aside 20,000 California mail ballots

The Supreme Court on Monday, Nov. 2, refused the Trump administration's emergency request to make California set aside mail ballots from roughly 20,000 people the federal government says are likely noncitizens, CBS News and the Associated Press reported.

The order was unsigned, gave no reasons and had no noted dissents. The court acted hours after the Justice Department filed and without asking California to respond, CBS News reported.

How the case got here

• The administration told California and Los Angeles County officials last month that more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens were on voter rolls, then sent lists to all 58 counties and sued to have those ballots held until citizenship could be confirmed, according to CBS News.
• U.S. District Judge David O. Carter refused to order the ballots separated, calling the government's identification process "rife with uncertainty and errors," CBS News reported. AP reported that Carter warned the move would "wreak havoc" on the election.
• A divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Carter's order 2-1, AP reported.

What each side says

State and county officials said the federal list appeared full of errors and could disenfranchise eligible citizens, AP reported. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said courts had now rejected the administration four times. Gov. Gavin Newsom posted "Democracy won."

AP reported that Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said he was highly confident the people on the list were not entitled to vote, while later acknowledging there may be errors.

Scale

California mailed a ballot to each of its roughly 23 million registered voters, and more than 6 million had been returned, AP reported. CBS News noted that confirmed cases of noncitizen voting are rare.