DOJ petitions Supreme Court to halt California mail ballot count ahead of election

The Justice Department filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Monday seeking a temporary order to stop California from counting about 20,000 mail-in ballots that the department believes may belong to non-citizens. The request follows a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that rejected the department’s effort to overturn a district court ruling permitting the ballots to be counted.

The petition arrives a day before the upcoming election, and the Supreme Court may consider it at any time, though no specific deadline has been set. The department originally sued California in October, asking a federal judge to prevent state officials from tabulating mail-in ballots "from likely non-citizens" until their citizenship status could be verified.

Judge David Carter previously denied the department’s request to set aside the ballots, stating, "This case is about the right of every American citizen to vote in a free and fair election." He added that the federal government had not previously attempted to compel a state to abandon its own election procedures on the eve of an election.

After the district court’s decision, the Justice Department appealed to the 9th Circuit, which also denied the appeal, leaving the district court’s order in place.