Trump administration appeals to Supreme Court to sideline 20,000 disputed California mail ballots

November 2, 2026 | Washington, D.C.

The Trump administration has filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to prevent California from counting approximately 20,000 mail-in ballots cast by voters whose citizenship status the federal government has questioned. The appeal comes just one day before the November 3 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

The Justice Department argues that the disputed ballots should be separated from other votes until officials can verify the voters' eligibility. California election officials counter that the federal government's list is unreliable, potentially includes thousands of American citizens, and would be nearly impossible to implement without disrupting an election already underway.

Federal Courts Reject Administration's Requests

Several federal courts have ruled against the administration's efforts. On Monday, Chief Judge James Boasberg ordered the Justice Department to stop making demands of California election officials, finding that the administration had likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which assigns authority over election rules to states and Congress.

In a separate case, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter rejected the government's request to segregate the ballots, warning that the action could disrupt the election, undermine public confidence, and potentially disenfranchise eligible voters.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Carter's ruling by a 2-1 vote. The dissenting judge argued that California's refusal to separate the disputed ballots could encourage violations of federal election law.

Justice Department Seeks Emergency Supreme Court Intervention

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that once the disputed ballots are mixed with other ballots, election officials would be unable to identify and retrieve them if they were later determined to be invalid.

California officials maintain that the state's election process is already too far advanced to accommodate the request. All approximately 23 million registered voters receive mail ballots, voting began in early October, and hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta criticized the administration's appeal as an attempt to interfere with the election and undermine the rule of law.

The Justice Department maintains that its actions are intended to prevent noncitizens from voting, although the article notes that noncitizen voting is rare.

Supreme Court Decision Pending

The emergency appeal represents the administration's latest effort to secure judicial intervention in California's election procedures. Although the Supreme Court has granted several emergency requests from the Trump administration during its second term, it previously rejected an effort to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms.

As of the article's publication, the Supreme Court had not ruled on the latest request, leaving the dispute unresolved immediately before Election Day.

Source and Attribution: Reporting by Lindsay Whitehurst, The Associated Press, with contributions from Sophie Austin in Sacramento. Published November 2, 2026, updated at 4:29 p.m. EST. Summary based on the original Associated Press reporting.