Trump’s California ballot appeal puts Supreme Court in center of fight over allegations of noncitizen voting

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

President Donald Trump on Monday urged the Supreme Court to force California to set aside potentially thousands of ballots the Justice Department claims may have been cast by noncitizens, a longshot request that multiple lower courts have rejected.

The appeal puts the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority in the position of weighing in on Trump’s sweeping allegations of widespread noncitizen voting based on an uncertain record and an exceedingly fast timeline.

Tens of millions of voters have already cast early ballots nationwide.

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How the conservative Supreme Court has rewritten the rules for the midterms

On Friday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals barred the administration from intervening in California’s mail-in ballot counting, concluding that the federal government has no power to dictate to states how to run elections.

“If the United States believes different procedures are necessary for vote-by-mail ballots, we believe it should take that suggestion to Congress, not the courts,” the appeals court wrote in a 2-1 decision that was issued by US Circuit Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump nominee, and Gabriel Sanchez, who was named to the bench by former President Joe Biden.

Following the president’s unfounded claims of mass noncitizen voting, the Justice Department claims it has identified some 20,000 people on California’s voter rolls who may be noncitizens. It asked state officials to set aside any ballots cast by those people and to take steps to verify their citizenship before counting them.

DOJ has argued the federal government has a constitutional interest in ensuring that only citizens vote. It also claims that California’s failure to investigate the registered voters the administration has flagged is frustrating enforcement of the federal criminal law banning noncitizen voting.

“Once California commingles the challenged ballots with lawful ones, there is no way to get the challenged ballots back,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in Monday’s filing.

California and voting rights groups have countered that the federal government’s past claims of noncitizen voters have not withstood scrutiny , that the current claims are based on fuzzy evidence that risks disenfranchising citizens and that the Trump administration doesn’t have legal authority to tell state officials how to handle the issue. Those are arguments that found purchase in lower federal courts that ruled against Trump.

“The district court found that the risks that noncitizens are voting are, at best, uncertain, and also tempered by California’s established voter-eligibility procedures,” the 9th Circuit wrote Friday. “In contrast, there is a material risk that granting the United States its requested relief would result in disenfranchisement.”

In his dissent, US Circuit Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote that the Trump administration was asking only for a “modest remedy” to halt the mixing of ballots cast by citizens and alleged noncitizens. Once those ballots are processed, all sides agree, it would be impossible to separate them.

“Throughout history, federal courts have acted to protect the voting and civil rights of our citizens by enjoining state action that violates the law,” wrote Bumatay, a Trump nominee. “And common sense also tells us that the federal government shouldn’t have to sit on its hands while a state allows the violation of federal law, especially when the integrity of federal elections is at stake.”

The appeals court also raised an issue that could be decisive for the Supreme Court. Under a legal theory known as the “Purcell principle,” the justices have long warned against federal courts weighing in at the last minute to change the rules of an election.

Trump has had a mixed record with emergency election appeals at the Supreme Court. Most notably, the justices in September rejected the president’s attempt to give the US Postal Service extraordinary power to withhold certain mail ballots. But the court sided with the Department of Homeland Security days later, allowing it to continue providing controversial citizenship data to state election officials.

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周一，唐纳德·特朗普总统敦促最高法院强制加利福尼亚州搁置司法部声称可能由非公民投出的数千张选票，这一要求希望渺茫，此前多家下级法院已驳回了这一请求。

此次上诉使最高法院 6 比 3 的保守派多数派面临权衡特朗普基于不确定的记录和极快的时间表而提出的关于非公民广泛投票的广泛指控的局面。

全国已有数千万选民提前投票。

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保守派最高法院如何改写中期选举规则

周五，美国第九巡回上诉法院禁止联邦政府干预加利福尼亚州的邮寄选票计票工作，裁定联邦政府无权干涉各州如何进行选举。

“如果美国认为邮寄选票需要不同的程序，我们认为它应该向国会提出这一建议，而不是向法院提出，”上诉法院在一份 2 比 1 的裁决中写道。该裁决由美国巡回法官马克·贝内特（特朗普提名）和加布里埃尔·桑切斯（前总统乔·拜登任命）做出。

在总统毫无根据地声称存在大规模非公民投票后，司法部表示已在加州选民名册上发现约2万名可能为非公民的选民。司法部已要求州政府官员将这些人投出的选票暂扣，并在计票前采取措施核实其公民身份。

司法部辩称，联邦政府有宪法义务确保只有公民才能投票。司法部还声称，加州未能对政府标记的已登记选民进行调查，阻碍了联邦刑事法律（禁止非公民投票）的执行。

“一旦加州将有争议的选票与合法选票混在一起，就没有办法将有争议的选票找回来了，”美国副检察长 D·约翰·绍尔在周一提交给最高法院的文件中表示。

加州和投票权组织反驳称，联邦政府过去关于非公民选民的说法经不起推敲，目前的说法基于模糊不清的证据，有可能剥夺公民的投票权，而且特朗普政府没有法律权力指示州政府官员如何处理这个问题。这些论点在下级联邦法院得到了支持，这些法院都做出了对特朗普不利的裁决。

第九巡回上诉法院周五写道：“地区法院认为，非公民投票的风险充其量是不确定的，而且加州既定的选民资格程序也缓解了这种风险。相比之下，如果允许美国政府获得其所请求的救济，则存在剥夺公民选举权的重大风险。”

美国巡回法官帕特里克·布马泰在其异议意见中写道，特朗普政府仅仅要求采取“适度补救措施”，以阻止将公民和被指控的非公民投出的选票混在一起。各方都同意，一旦这些选票被处理完毕，就不可能将它们分开。

“纵观历史，联邦法院一直通过制止各州违反法律的行为来保护公民的投票权和公民权利，”特朗普提名的法官布马泰写道。“常识也告诉我们，当一个州允许违反联邦法律的行为发生时，联邦政府不应该袖手旁观，尤其是在联邦选举的公正性受到威胁的情况下。”

上诉法院还提出了一个可能对最高法院产生决定性影响的问题。根据一项被称为“珀塞尔原则”的法律理论，大法官们长期以来一直警告联邦法院不要在最后一刻介入并改变选举规则。

特朗普在最高法院就紧急选举上诉方面成绩褒贬不一。最引人注目的是，大法官们在9月份驳回了总统赋予美国邮政局特殊权力以扣留某些邮寄选票的请求。但几天后，最高法院又支持了国土安全部，允许其继续向各州选举官员提供备受争议的公民身份数据。