The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has requested that the Supreme Court compel the state of California to leave out of the count about 20,000 ballots sent by mail, corresponding to people whom the Administration classifies as "probable non-citizens", ahead of the midterm elections scheduled for next November 3.
The White House initiative puts the conservative 6-3 majority of the High Court in the spotlight, and does so with a minimum time margin, given that the electoral appointment takes place on Tuesday and tens of millions of mail-in votes have already been cast across the country.
Trump's request is directed against the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Friday blocked any federal intervention in California's count due to invasion of state powers and ratified the decision of federal judge David O. Carter, issued last October 29.
Carter rejected the temporary restraining order requested by the Government on the grounds that the measure would cause considerable chaos and alter elections already underway. "If the Executive can discard votes and threaten ongoing elections due to unproven accusations, then our democracy is in danger," argued the magistrate, appointed by the Democratic former president Bill Clinton.
The order emphasizes that this is an unprecedented intrusion by Washington into the powers of the states to organize their electoral processes. "Never before in the history of the United States has the federal Government, on the eve of elections, tried to coerce a state and local Government into abandoning its own constitutional electoral procedures and bowing to the will of the Executive Branch," the resolution states.
The judicial document adds that, with this lawsuit, "the Executive would pretend that this court believes it reigns as sole sovereign. But California and its people are sovereign too".
The litigation began when the Department of Justice delivered to the authorities of Los Angeles County and to the California Secretary of State a storage device with information on more than 20,000 alleged non-citizens, demanding that their votes be separated within a maximum period of 48 hours after cross-checking immigration and Social Security data.
Nevertheless, Carter has strongly questioned the soundness of the verification system used by the Executive and has recalled that the Department of Homeland Security initially located in Nevada nearly 16,000 supposed non-citizens in the census, a figure that, after the checks, was reduced to 185 and that ultimately corresponded entirely to American citizens with full rights. Addressing the Government's claim based on a procedure "riddled with uncertainties and errors" would entail the danger of "depriving American citizens of the right to vote," the judge reasoned.
The ruling also warns that implementing at the last minute a mechanism to separate these ballots, just days before November 3, would force local administrations to design completely new protocols and divert human and technical resources, which could compromise the completion of the count and respect for the legal deadlines of the electoral process.