Supreme Court denies Trump bid to block California midterm votes

The US Supreme Court has dealt a decisive blow to the Trump administration by rejecting its last-minute request to intervene in California's midterm election vote count. According to the BBC News ^[1], the court issued a one-line order denying an injunction that would have set aside approximately 20,000 ballots alleged to have been cast by non-US citizens.

This ruling comes on the eve of the midterms, which will determine party control of Congress during the final years of President Donald Trump's second term. The justice department had argued that these specific ballots could "debase or dilute valid votes" if included. However, the high court's decision means that rulings made in lower courts stand, effectively ending the federal government's bid to disqualify the votes in question.

Two lower courts had previously rejected the administration's arguments. The BBC reported ^[1] that state election officials challenged the federal claims, noting that the process used to identify alleged non-citizens was inaccurate. They warned that eligible voters risked disenfranchisement if the ballots were segregated while voting was still underway.

The conflict escalated when armed Department of Homeland Security officials delivered letters to county employees, threatening criminal charges if they did not sequester the ballots. In a scathing ruling, district judge David Carter described the move as indicative of an "ongoing pattern of attempted election interference," stating that never before had the federal government sought to coerce state procedures on the eve of an election.

California holds the largest voting register in the nation, with roughly 23 million registered voters. By Sunday evening, the California secretary of state's office reported that over six million mail-in ballots had been processed. The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed postal voting for alleged fraud, a claim that research suggests is extremely rare. With the legal challenges resolved, California's vote count proceeds without federal interference, leaving the outcome of the congressional control battle to the voters themselves.