WASHINGTON, Nov 3 — The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected a Trump administration emergency bid to force California to set aside the mail-in ballots of more than 20,000 people on the grounds they may not be American citizens.
Acting a day before the US midterm elections, the top court denied the request in an unsigned, one-sentence ruling, as is common in urgent cases before the court. It gave no reasoning for the decision.
The federal government had accused California of having 190,000 illegal voters on its rolls. It recently revised the figure to 20,000 and filed an emergency lawsuit — after early voting had begun — to stop the state from sending ballots to them.
The Supreme Court action came after lower courts last week — and again on Monday — rejected the demand by the Department of Justice (DOJ), with one judge calling it brazen pre-election interference.
