WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an emergency request from the Department of Justice seeking to have California separate ballots from voters whose citizenship the department questioned. The decision came a day before Election Day.
The Justice Department had asked the court to intervene after a federal judge and a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to order California to hold or stop processing ballots cast by thousands of registered voters.
Federal officials say they identified roughly 20,000 people on California’s voter rolls who may not be U.S. citizens and argue their ballots should not be counted until their eligibility is confirmed. California and voting-rights advocates have challenged the request, citing concerns about the accuracy of the federal list and the risk of blocking eligible voters.
The Supreme Court’s action leaves the lower-court decisions in place. It does not resolve the broader dispute over the Justice Department’s effort to use federal data to question state voter registrations.
The case has intensified debate over the limits of federal authority in state election administration and how officials should handle eligibility concerns without disenfranchising qualified voters.
