Supreme Court denies DOJ bid to pause California ballots hours before Election Day

Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a final, emergency request from the Department of Justice to intervene in California’s election processing on Monday evening. The decision came just hours before Tuesday’s Election Day, ending a legal battle over voter rolls.

The Justice Department argued that 20,000 likely noncitizens appear on California’s voter list. Officials said those ballots should be held until citizenship is verified. The department sought a high court order to stop Los Angeles County from processing those specific ballots.

A divided panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had already rejected the federal government’s emergency request on Friday. Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez wrote that there was a material risk that changing the process now would disenfranchise voters and jeopardize the entire county election. They cited the Purcell principle, which discourages altering election rules on the eve of a vote.

Judge Patrick Bumatay dissented from the 9th Circuit decision. The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves the lower court rulings in place. Those rulings favored California and Los Angeles County, which argued the federal list was unreliable and that creating a new system to segregate ballots during an active election was infeasible.

Data from the University of California, Los Angeles, Voting Rights Project suggests the number of disputed ballots is lower than the federal estimate. Scientists analyzed the DOJ list after a court order granted access in a separate lawsuit. They found that 42% of the names did not appear on California’s current voter roll. The analysis also identified naturalized citizens among those flagged by the department.

The legal conflict has intensified in recent weeks as the Justice Department sent subpoenas to California election officials. The department reminded officials that criminal prosecution is possible for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots. A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday to prevent the administration from coercing local officials. The government has appealed that order as well.

The denial of the appeal allows Los Angeles County to continue processing ballots as scheduled. The Supreme Court’s decision does not resolve the underlying dispute over voter eligibility, but it permits the state to complete the count for Tuesday’s election without a federal pause.