In a development that will shock absolutely no one who has been paying attention, the US supreme court on Monday quickly rejected the Trump administration's request to force California to set aside thousands of mail ballots from people the administration claims are noncitizens, the Associated Press reports. The high court declined to intervene in a case involving 20,000 people the Republican administration flagged as likely noncitizens on the largely Democratic state's voter rolls - a decision that arrived just hours after the administration bothered to ask.
The ruling was the latest judicial rebuke in a wave of unprecedented efforts from the Trump administration to meddle in the elections process of multiple states. The midterm elections are expected to bring nationwide victories for Democrats and impose more Congressional checks on Trump's power, which may explain the urgency.
In California, the administration had asked the high court to set aside the challenged ballots until the voters' citizenship status could be verified. State officials said the list appeared to be riddled with errors and that setting the ballots aside could effectively disenfranchise legal voters. The high court, as is customary in emergency decisions, did not detail its reasoning - possibly because the reasoning was self-evident. The justices had previously rejected Trump's push to restrict mail ballots around the country in September, even though they have sided with his administration in a series of other emergency docket appeals.
Astronauts for America, a nonpartisan group of more than 100 former NASA astronauts, released a statement calling for free and fair elections in which "every lawful vote is counted." The statement - a clear criticism of the Trump administration's Justice Department and its lawsuits attempting to influence how California, Alaska, and other states conduct their elections - noted that "The states have the central responsibility for conducting elections." That constitutional point was emphasized by a federal judge today in ruling against the administration's attempt to interfere in California's midterms.
California politicians celebrated this evening, though election officials are still bracing for new attempts to meddle with the election or interfere with the days of ballot-counting that will follow. California has the largest population of any state and is among the slowest to finalize election results - a delay that leaves plenty of time for misinformation to spread, because of course it does.
Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly warned he will respond forcefully to any interference. In a video posted today, he wrote: "Let me be clear to anyone thinking about helping Trump interfere with California elections: If you interfere with voters or tamper with ballots, you will be prosecuted with a FELONY. And don't count on a pardon from the President. He can't pardon you out of California justice." In May, Newsom signed new election-protection measures into law anticipating potential administration interference during the midterms. The law "prohibits any person - including federal agents - from accessing voter rolls or election technology without a court order" and makes clear that "law enforcement officers are restricted from disrupting election workers, except in public safety emergencies."
Meanwhile, Abdul El-Sayed mocked administration officials during the final rally of his Michigan senate campaign - an event with the rapper Common at the Majestic Theater in downtown Detroit, in front of over a thousand supporters. On Trump, who made several Islamophobic remarks about El-Sayed today and keeps calling him "Mohammed," he said: "Donald Trump can't seem to remember what my name is, despite his incredibly high score on his cognitive test." He called vice president JD Vance "JV Dance." On health secretary Robert F Kennedy, who recently came to Michigan and disparaged the accomplishments of the Arab world, El-Sayed said: "His only expertise is that he understands what it means to have zero scientific contributions." Then, with a flourish: "I'm like, habibi, listen, at the end of the day, I got two doctorates, you got none." And on fundraising: "We beat their 70 million in the primary, they might as well have set their money on fire. And we're going to beat their 250 million in the general. Go ahead and set your money on fire."
Elsewhere, US envoy Steve Witkoff said the United States will bring together delegations from Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 to discuss ending Moscow's war against Ukraine, post-war security agreements and de-escalation, Reuters reports. US negotiators have been seeking a breakthrough before winter sets in. The last US-mediated peace talks took place in February, before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
It's worth noting just what a bureaucratic nightmare it would have been had the supreme court sided with the administration's request to order California to identify and set aside 20,000 ballots it claimed were potentially submitted by noncitizens. As the Associated Press notes, voting has been underway in California since early October. All of the state's roughly 23 million registered voters are mailed a ballot. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed. California election officials said finding and setting aside the challenged ballots now would be logistically impossible - a polite way of saying "absurd."
Governor Newsom called the administration's attempts a "baseless attack." "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," he said in a statement. "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. Tomorrow, Californians can feel secure in knowing the state will carry out a free and fair election - just as we've always done."
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said state officials "will remain vigilant and keep fighting back against federal efforts to undermine our democracy." He noted the courts have now rejected the administration's attempts "not once, not twice, not three times, but four times - from the district court to the Ninth Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. This latest decision should put an end to the Administration's attempt to disrupt California's elections through emergency court orders."
California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber said Californians can now focus on voting. "While this fight is not over yet, on the eve of Election Day, this means millions of Californians can focus on the most important task at hand - casting their ballot," Weber said.
The Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), a non-profit focused on restoring trust in the election system, celebrated the decision. CEIR Executive Director David Becker said the Supreme Court reaffirmed "state sovereignty by swiftly rejecting the Justice Department's illegal attempt to interfere with California's election." He added: "Every time the administration's claims regarding noncitizen voters have been subjected to any sort of scrutiny, they have immediately fallen apart. In California, Nevada, and every other state, the administration's initial broad and vague claims have been found to be unsupported by evidence. In a hearing before a federal district judge just today, an attorney for the administration acknowledged the DHS lists of alleged noncitizens likely have a high error rate."
The Cook Political Report is now predicting Michigan's furiously contested senate race is more likely to be won by Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, after previously categorizing it as a "toss-up." The shift comes amid last-minute outrage as sitting Democratic Michigan congresswoman Hayley Stevens endorsed El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers - despite Stevens' previous public attacks on Rogers during a Democratic primary election she lost. Stevens and El-Sayed's contrasting policy views on Israel are seen as central to a "betrayal" that many Democrats argue may have cost the 43-year-old Stevens her career as a Democratic politician.
Two losses in two courts in just three hours. Judges across the country have repeatedly rebuked the administration for its last-minute demand that California set aside 20,000 ballots - an unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional attempt to interfere with a state's electoral process. Today, the administration's California gambit was rejected by two different courts in two separate cases in a matter of hours. First, a federal judge in Washington ordered the administration to stop demanding that California election officials set aside ballots from 20,000 people, writing: "The Executive Branch has likely violated the Constitution's Elections Clause, which commits authority over election rules to the states and Congress alone." Then, in a separate case, the supreme court swiftly rejected the emergency request this morning that it intervene on the day before the election and force California election officials to set aside the 20,000 mail ballots.
Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias called the supreme court ruling "A complete DEFEAT for Trump DOJ," noting the denial came with "no noted dissents" - even from more conservative justices - and that the court "denied DOJ's application about the California election without even asking for us to respond."