The US Supreme Court has rejected an emergency request from President Donald Trump’s administration seeking to have California set aside about 20,000 ballots over allegations that they may have been issued to non-US citizens. The ruling came hours after the government brought the case to the court, and after it had already lost in lower courts.
The administration had asked California to keep the ballots separate while the identities of the people involved were verified. Only US citizens may vote in federal elections, the government argued. The allegations concern the state’s ballot distribution; the source does not report a finding that any non-citizens voted.
The case reached the Supreme Court one day before Americans were due to vote in the midterm elections, which will decide all seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the Senate seats. California is traditionally a strong state for Democrats.
Trump has repeatedly questioned the integrity of US elections. He recently called California’s elections corrupt and claimed there were millions of invalid votes, without providing evidence, according to the report. He has also maintained that he won the 2020 presidential election, a claim that has been repeatedly disproved.
The president has long clashed with California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who is regarded as a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2028. Midterm elections, held near the halfway point of a president’s four-year term, are traditionally seen as a referendum on the administration. Historically, the president’s party almost always loses seats in Congress during the midterms.
Sources: Der Spiegel.