Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to sequester California ballots
The US Supreme Court has ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to force California election officials to set aside about 20,000 ballots, as Governor Gavin Newsom warns of a serious threat to the midterm elections.
The US Supreme Court has ruled against the Trump administration in its latest attempt to force California election officials to set aside ballots ahead of the midterm elections. On Monday, the justices sided with the state, rejecting a federal push to segregate and withhold ballots from people the Justice Department says are non-citizens.
The Justice Department had ordered the state to separate and not count about 20,000 ballots, claiming they came from people who were not US citizens and were wrongly listed on the state's voter rolls. In mid-October, the department delivered a USB drive containing the names to election officials in Los Angeles and Sacramento. It gave officials only 48 hours to review the list and threatened to sue if the ballots were not sequestered until those named could verify their citizenship. Election officials refused, and a series of courtroom battles followed.
Several lower courts had already sided with California, whose officials argued that the federal government was seeking to interfere in state elections. Monday's decision from the Supreme Court followed those rulings and ended the administration's bid to block the counting of the disputed ballots. The legal standoff had lasted several weeks, and the state's position was upheld at every stage of the process. Governor Gavin Newsom has described the episode as a grave threat to the election and has said the state will prosecute anyone who meddles with voters.
The dispute has unfolded alongside a broader federal campaign against alleged voter fraud in the state. On the eve of the midterms, the Justice Department in California charged six more people with alleged voter fraud crimes. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and a close ally of the president, announced that his office was prosecuting six lawful permanent residents accused of unlawfully registering to vote and casting fraudulent ballots.
The new charges follow a similar set of cases filed last month, when the department charged 28 people across California. In one of those cases, federal authorities arranged a dramatic on-camera arrest of a 72-year-old defendant, and the department edited the footage into a promotional video. The latest arrests came after the department unsuccessfully fought to force state officials to set aside the roughly 20,000 ballots, a fight the Supreme Court has now decided against the administration.
Source: independent.co.uk
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