The Justice Department argues the ballots may belong to noncitizens who are prohibited from voting in federal elections. It wants California to segregate them pending further review, rather than count them with the rest of Tuesday's returns. California officials have said the federal list of flagged voters is unreliable and likely includes many people who are U.S. citizens.

The request follows two rejections of the administration's bid by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In its most recent ruling, a 2-1 decision issued Friday, the panel said there was no feasible way to identify and segregate the ballots of specific individuals without potentially catastrophic effects on the entire system, and it cited the Purcell principle against changing election rules on the eve of an election. Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, formed the majority; Judge Patrick Bumatay, also a Trump appointee, dissented. A federal district judge, David Carter, had denied the Justice Department's request earlier that week.

The emergency application asks the Supreme Court to step in before ballots are tabulated, a narrow procedural question but one that lands the court squarely in a broader, more contested fight over noncitizen voting and federal authority over state-run elections. the state disputes that characterization, saying its safeguards against noncitizen voting are robust, and the Justice Department has issued a series of subpoenas to California election offices.

The California case is not an isolated episode. The administration has also pursued a parallel case in Alaska, where the Justice Department sued to delay certification of the Senate election if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses, citing a second candidate with the same name on the ballot. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit on Sunday, finding that the government had not established the redressability required for standing and that ordering ballots segregated for a law enforcement review would clearly violate Alaskans' right to a secret ballot. The Justice Department has said it will appeal.

Taken together, the two cases involve federal requests, made in the days before voting, that ask courts to order ballots segregated in state-run elections. Whether the Supreme Court will act before ballots are counted Tuesday — and what standard it might apply to claims about noncitizen voting made this close to an election — remains to be seen. The court has not yet said when or whether it will rule.

References

1. 1.CNBC — reported the DOJ's request to the Supreme Court to temporarily block California from counting the disputed ballots
2. 2.Reuters — reported the Trump administration's move to take the California ballot fight to the Supreme Court
3. 3.NYTimes — reported the Trump administration's request for Supreme Court intervention in the California ballot case
4. 4.NBC News — reported the Ninth Circuit's 2-1 ruling rejecting the DOJ's bid, including the judges' identities and the court's reasoning on methodology and timing
5. 5.Courthouse News — reported details of the Ninth Circuit's rejection of the Trump administration's bid to sequester California ballots
6. 6.Al Jazeera — reported California's position that segregating the ballots could disenfranchise eligible voters
7. 7.NPR/Houston Public Media — reported on the DOJ's escalating dispute with California election officials, including subpoenas sent to local officials
8. 8.NBC News — reported on the dismissal of the Trump administration's Alaska Senate election lawsuit by a federal judge citing secret-ballot concerns
9. 9.Reason — reported on the broader pattern of judicial rejections of the administration's election-related litigation in California and Alaska