An emergency decision by the highest court in the United States aligned with the position of lower courts in denying a request from the Department of Justice to segregate 20,000 ballots that according to the Trump Administration would be used by non-citizens in the midterms on November 3. Previously, the president had also failed in his attempt to block an eventual proclamation by Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola in Alaska.

First modification: 03/11/2026 - 03:35

President Donald Trump continues to face a legal wall in his efforts to influence electoral decisions ahead of the November 3 midterms.

This time it has been the Supreme Court with a conservative majority that has put a stop to his request to block the counting of 20,000 ballots in California.

The highest court denied an emergency request from the Department of Justice that sought to temporarily prevent the counting of 20,000 votes that the Trump Administration said corresponded to non-citizens.

Although it usually accompanies most of the president's policies with its decisions, this time the Supreme Court did not validate its efforts aimed at influencing the midterm elections, which will define the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 in the Senate (one third plus two special elections).

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Trump was seeking a temporary block so that the ballots, which according to his version would be used by non-citizens, would not be counted. Because it was an emergency motion, there was no written justification for the rejection by the high court, but there was also no public dissent among conservative judges usually supportive of the positions of the federal government.

What was Trump asking for in California?

The Justice Department had called for segregation, arguing that "once California mixes contested ballots with legal ones, there is no way to recover them."

The expectation was that those votes could not be counted until it was determined whether the voters who cast them were American citizens or not.

But the Supreme Court ruled in the same vein as several lower courts before it.

Federal Judge David Carter of Los Angeles denied the request and in his brief observed that "never before in the history of the United States has the federal government, on the eve of an election, attempted to coerce a state and local government to abandon its own constitutional electoral procedures and submit to the will of the executive branch."

"If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven accusations, then our democracy is in danger," Carter added.

An appeals court voted 2-1 to uphold Carter's ruling, underscoring the state's power over election procedures and California's "comprehensive legal scheme to ensure the integrity of its elections."

Two other courts also rejected the Trump Administration's threats to prosecute election officials who allowed disputed ballots to be included in recounts.

Northern District of California Judge Trina Thompson cited inaccuracies in the list and asked the Justice Department lawyer: "Would you agree that there is a high error rate?"

A study by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that nearly 40% of the names included on the list corresponded to voters who were not registered in the state. In addition, he found that at least 22 about whom the federal government had doubts were American citizens and noted that there could be many more in that situation.

In Washington, District Court of Columbia Chief Justice James Boasberg rejected pressure on California Board of Elections officials, warning that "the Executive Branch has likely violated the Constitution's Election Clause, which entrusts authority over election rules only to the states and Congress."

Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed during the early voting period in California, a Democratic stronghold and the most populous state in the country, with 23 million registered voters.

There, 52 seats in the House of Representatives will be defined, with congressional districts that were redrawn for this occasion, in an attempt aimed at shoring up the Democrats' options and counteracting a similar redistribution made in Texas in favor of the Republicans.

Legal storm for Trump

The California decision marks the third time the Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by the Trump Administration to challenge the electoral system.

Last September, this court rejected the restrictions that the Republican magnate was trying to impose on voting by mail.

Later, however, he authorized the reactivation of the controversial SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Rights) registry, a tool that would allow states to verify the citizenship of voters.

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SAVE was the basis of the initiative of the same name, which was approved by the House of Representatives, but did not find support in the Senate, aimed at requiring proof of citizenship to vote. It has been questioned due to inaccuracies detected by different audits.

In February, the high court had authorized California to use its redrawn map, thereby rejecting an emergency request by the Republican Party to block the redistricting, which was approved in a referendum.

The setback adds to what Trump already experienced on Saturday, October 31, when a federal judge in Alaska dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuit aimed at blocking the certification of adverse results for Republicans in that state.

Read alsoTrump's attempt to prevent the certification of a Republican defeat in Alaska fails

The attempt was aimed at avoiding an eventual proclamation by Democrat Mary Peltola, until determining whether voters had not been confused by the presence of two homonymous candidates on the ballot, Senator Dan S. Sullivan, Republican, and retired teacher Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., independent.

"This latest measure smacks of desperation and is another attempt to undermine our elections and trample on the rule of law," California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said on November 2 in a statement responding to the Justice Department's announcement that it would continue to "explore all available legal avenues to protect the integrity of our elections."

For his part, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, warned in a video posted on his social networks that he was willing to prosecute anyone who tried to manipulate ballots for “serious state crimes,” remembering that those who engaged in this conduct could not receive presidential pardons.

"I want to be clear and direct with anyone who is thinking about helping him (President Trump): if you interfere with our voters, you will be prosecuted for a serious crime. If you manipulate our ballots, you will be held accountable in court," Newsom said, later adding: "It doesn't matter who gave the order: if you try to interfere in California's elections, California will come after you."

Offensive activated: 63 charges against foreigners

The Department of Justice announced that November 2 that it filed charges against 63 people for alleged electoral crimes such as illegal voting and fraudulent voter registration.

These are foreigners, many of them Latin Americans, who according to the accusation had falsely presented themselves as US citizens, with the aim of voting, or had shown fraudulent registration applications to register on the electoral roll.

"Today's announcement represents the largest increase in election fraud arrests since President (Donald) Trump returned to office," said Attorney General Todd Blanche.

Among the defendants are permanent legal residents from Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and Honduras, most of whom are accused of having registered or intended to register in several states without meeting the citizenship requirement to do so.

Analysts warn that electoral fraud by non-citizens is almost zero in the United States, in proportion to the size of the electoral registry. An investigation by the conservative group Heritage Foundation identified 23 cases of non-citizen voting between 2003 and 2022.

For its part, the Brennan Center For Justice estimated that 0.0001% of the 23.5 million votes cast in 42 jurisdictions surveyed in the 2016 election were presumably non-citizen votes.

With AP, EFE and Reuters

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