▲ Mail-in ballots in Orange County, California
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a request by Donald Trump's administration to block the counting of certain mail-in ballots in California, which the administration claimed may have been cast by non-citizens without voting rights.
The Supreme Court dismissed the request just hours after the U.S. Department of Justice filed an application for an injunction.
The Justice Department had asked the court to order California to segregate some 20,000 ballots from other ballots until the citizenship status of those voters could be verified.
Following its standard procedures for emergency applications, the Supreme Court issued a one-sentence order without explaining the reasons for the rejection, and no dissenting opinions were published.
With the Supreme Court's swift decision coming just a day before the midterm election main voting day, President Trump's attempt to intervene in California's vote counting, driven by his persistent claims of election fraud, has effectively failed.
Previously, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit on October 15 with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, requesting an injunction to prevent the California state government from tallying mail-in ballots from approximately 20,000 individuals suspected of not being U.S. citizens until their identities could be confirmed.
After successive rejections by the federal district court and the federal appeals court, the Justice Department knocked on the door of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court on the same day, but that effort also failed.
The New York Times (NYT) evaluated the Supreme Court's decision as an "unusual rebuke to the Trump administration" and a message that the court is unwilling to intervene in President Trump's attempts to interfere with state-run election operations.
The outlet also noted that dismissing the emergency application just hours after it was filed, without even asking for a response or opinions from the opposing side, was "virtually unprecedented."
(Photo: Getty Images)
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