Supreme Court rejects Trump's request to exclude votes from potential non-citizens in California

The Supreme Court rejected an emergency request from the Trump administration for California to set aside approximately 20,000 mail-in ballots from people whom the federal government considers to be potential non-citizens. In a ruling that was unsigned and only a few lines long, the nation's highest court upheld the lower courts' ruling.

The case began in mid-October, when the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that the state might be facilitating illegal voting by sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters, including those whose citizenship is being questioned by federal authorities.

After the court rejected the motion, the DOJ appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which also dismissed it. In a 2-1 decision, the judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez argued that the federal government had not demonstrated that it met the requirements for a preliminary injunction. Furthermore, they questioned the urgency of the motion, which was filed after the electoral process was already underway.

It was then that the White House decided to file an emergency petition with the Supreme Court, seeking to prevent California from counting those votes before verifying the voters' citizenship. However, the nation's highest court rejected the petition without providing an explanation for its decision.

California Governor, Gavin Newsom, reacted to the decision in a statement: "After repeatedly losing in the lower courts, the highest court in the land firmly slapped down the Trump DOJ’s baseless attack on California’s electoral process — not even entertaining it."

"The third branch of government did its job, and that should be a welcome sight for all Americans given the disgusting and dangerous attacks on our democracy by the federal government," he added.