By admin 
One day before the midterm elections, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s emergency request to force California to set aside the ballots of 20,000 voters whom the Justice Department said might not be U.S. citizens.
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The high court issued its decision Monday, just hours after the administration filed its request. The court did not explain its reasoning, issuing only a one-sentence order. There were no noted dissents.
The ruling was the latest setback in the Republican administration’s fight with the Democratic-led state over the federal government’s list of possible noncitizen voters. A federal appeals court rejected the administration’s request twice, most recently last week, and a U.S. district judge also ruled against it.
In its emergency petition Monday, the Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that California should be required to segregate the disputed ballots while the litigation continued.
“This court should issue an interim injunction directing California to segregate ballots cast by the individuals who may be registered to vote in California and have been identified by the federal government as likely noncitizens,” the Justice Department wrote in its emergency petition.
The petition is part of a fast-moving swirl of lawsuits, criminal charges and court orders surrounding the government’s list of potential noncitizens.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision in a brief social media post Monday.
“Justice is served,” Newsom wrote.
Six more charged
On Monday, federal prosecutors said they had charged six people in California with registering or voting as noncitizens, bringing the total facing such accusations over the past two weeks to 34.
Last month, a federal judge in Oakland called the database “flawed” and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop using it to conduct field investigations until after the polls closed on Tuesday.
On Friday, the union representing election workers filed a separate lawsuit in federal court in San Jose, seeking to stop the federal government from threatening prosecution of workers who processed ballots from people it believed were likely to be noncitizens.
Tensions over the government’s list of possible noncitizen voters in California began in July, when the Department of Homeland Security sent letters to Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County, saying it had identified nearly 190,000 people it believed might be noncitizens registered to vote.
Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan declined to cooperate, asking instead for more information, including details about how the government had developed its database.
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On Oct. 13, the administration sent new letters, giving the county and state 48 hours to develop a plan to segregate ballots from individuals named on its list. Two days later, the Justice Department sued both governments, saying they were impeding its efforts to stop noncitizens from voting.
Government effort criticized
In a ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge David Carter sharply criticized the government’s effort to force California to set aside the ballots.
“The DOJ’s actions are indicative of a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials,” he wrote, saying the administration’s actions infringed on the state’s right under the U.S. Constitution to manage its own elections and relied on a skewed analysis of federal law.
The database was developed using portions of a commercially available version of California’s voter rolls that the government acknowledged might not be entirely accurate. Carter called the database “not credible.” A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in a divided opinion released Friday. The same panel had previously rejected the government’s arguments after a highly unusual weekend hearing on Oct. 25.
But in its filing Monday, the Trump administration said it was too soon to determine the accuracy of the database because full arguments had not yet been presented in court.
It asked the Supreme Court to issue a preliminary injunction ordering the state to set aside the ballots while other issues in the case were litigated.
“The district court suggested … that the federal government’s allegations “are not credible,” the government said. “But that conclusion is legally erroneous.”
The Justice Department announced its filing in a post on the social media platform X.
“California has refused to work with the Federal Government to protect against noncitizen voting, which dilutes lawful votes,” Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote.
Before the Supreme Court issued its decision, Newsom derided the administration’s claim that its petition was an emergency and noted the three recent court decisions rejecting its request for an order setting aside the ballots.
“Trump and his administration have never understood what “NO” means, and it appears after being told “NO” three times last week they’re still unsure,” Newsom wrote.
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This story was originally published November 2, 2026 at 12:24 PM.