WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court turned away a last-minute Trump administration effort to force California to set aside the ballots of roughly 20,000 people the Justice Department claims are “likely” noncitizens, denying the emergency request on Monday, Nov. 2 — the night before Election Day and only hours after the Justice Department filed it, according to reporting by NPR and Democracy Docket.

The Court offered no explanation, NPR reported. Democracy Docket reported the request was rejected with no noted dissents after Justice Elena Kagan referred it to the full Court. No written opinion has been published, so the justices’ reasoning remains unknown.

What the Justice Department Wanted

The Justice Department asked the Court to order California to segregate and stop processing ballots cast by about 20,000 people on a list the department compiled, so those ballots would not be counted until citizenship could be verified. Democracy Docket cited a figure of nearly 21,000 in the department’s claims elsewhere in its coverage.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter wrote on X on Monday that “California has refused to work with the Federal Government to protect against noncitizen voting, which dilutes lawful votes,” and said the department would continue pursuing every available legal avenue.

A String of Legal Losses

The Supreme Court ruling is the latest in a series of defeats for the administration. A federal judge, David Carter, and a divided panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already declined to order California to set the ballots aside. According to NPR, the district court pointed to what it called a “broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials.”

In the 9th Circuit, Judges Mark Bennett and Gabriel Sanchez formed the majority, with Judge Patrick Bumatay dissenting. The majority warned that “there is a material risk that granting the United States its requested relief would result in disenfranchisement and could jeopardize the County’s entire election,” and cited the Purcell principle, which discourages courts from changing election rules close to an election, along with the National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day bar on systematic voter removals before a federal election. Los Angeles County is the county whose ballots were at issue in that ruling.

Additional rulings piled up on Monday alone, NPR reported. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., in Trujillo v. DHS, found the department’s attempts to impose new ballot-counting procedures unconstitutional and blocked efforts to compel California to segregate ballots based on the department’s list. Later that night, another D.C. federal judge, in League of Women Voters v. DHS, barred the administration from sending lists of alleged noncitizen voters to election administrators nationwide, finding the practice likely contrary to law and in violation of the Privacy Act.

A San Francisco federal judge had also issued a temporary restraining order barring the administration from threatening or coercing election officials over ballots of registered voters it alleges are ineligible. The government appealed, and the order stays in place pending review by all active 9th Circuit judges, NPR reported. The department also sent subpoenas to California election officials and reminded them they could face criminal prosecution for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots.

Questions About the List Itself

A central dispute is the reliability of the list. NPR reported that data scientists with the UCLA Voting Rights Project, who gained access to the list through a court order in a separate lawsuit, found that 42 percent of the names do not appear on California’s current voter roll, and that naturalized citizens were among those named. Democracy Docket, citing data scientists working with an immigrants’ rights group, reported that the list lacked the state voter identification number, contained mismatched dates, and included dozens of U.S. citizens and thousands of people not currently registered in California.

NPR noted that the number of ballots actually in dispute is likely far smaller than 20,000, because county officials found that many people on the list had no active registration and were never mailed ballots. Courts have sided with California and Los Angeles County that segregating ballots in the middle of an election is not feasible.

Democracy Docket also reported that the department made a similar demand involving about 400 voters in Washington state. Disclosure: the outlet was founded by Marc Elias, whose law firm represents intervenors in the California case.

California Responds

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in a statement: “This latest decision should put an end to the Administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders.” He added, “But our work is not over. We will remain vigilant and keep fighting back against federal efforts to undermine our democracy.”

What It Means for American Voters

The episode lands in the middle of a fall in which the Supreme Court has repeatedly been drawn into election disputes. Democracy Docket noted that in September the Court rejected an administration bid to restrict mail voting and also threw out Missouri’s congressional map. California is the nation’s largest state, and more than 6 million early votes had been cast there by Nov. 2, according to figures Democracy Docket cited from a University of Florida election lab page that it did not independently verify.

For voters, the practical effect of Monday’s order is straightforward: California’s counting continues under the state’s existing procedures rather than being split into separate piles on federal orders. The larger fight over how citizenship is verified, and who gets to do the verifying, is almost certain to continue in the courts and in Congress long after the last ballot is counted.

This report is based on coverage by NPR and Democracy Docket and will be updated as more details emerge.