Trump admin asks top court to set aside 20,000 California ballots

In a bid to impact the upcoming midterm elections, the Trump administration has requested the US Supreme Court to segregate mail-in ballots in California, potentially excluding over 20,000 ballots it suspects may not belong to American citizens. The request, filed on the eve of the crucial vote, follows previous court rejections by lower courts.

Solicitor General D John Sauer argued that mixing the contested ballots with valid ones would render them irretrievable, allowing the district court to only grant relief after a merit-based proceeding. The administration's move is seen as an attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the election results, which President Trump's Republican Party is at risk of losing control of Congress in.

District Judge David Carter, however, has rejected the request, emphasizing that the federal government has never before intervened in this manner on the eve of an election. The DOJ's assertion of 190,000 illegal voters in California has been revised to 20,000, but subsequent verification has further reduced the figure. The administration's accusations of voter fraud in California and Nevada have not been substantiated by studies, which consistently show the instances of voter fraud are minimal and do not impact election outcomes.

In another election case, a federal judge in Alaska dismissed a request by the Trump administration to halt the certification of Senate election results if the Democratic candidate wins, as another candidate with the same name would otherwise siphon off votes.