Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to set aside California ballots

The dispute centres on the Trump administration's claim that about 20,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in California. Local officials disputed that assertion, NBC News reported.

The administration wanted ballots associated with the flagged voters kept separate until their citizenship status could be verified, according to News18. California warned that blocking ballots from suspected noncitizens could disenfranchise eligible voters, Al Jazeera reported.

On October 31, BBC News reported that a judge had ordered the administration to stop threatening election officials. Officials had received letters demanding that they set aside ballots from possible noncitizen voters.

The underlying list also faced scrutiny. On October 31, Times now reported that an analysis submitted to a federal court found more than 40 percent of the people flagged by the administration did not appear on California's voter rolls. The Hill reported further scrutiny of mismatches on November 1.

On November 2, the administration took the dispute to the Supreme Court after lower courts rejected its request, according to NPR Politics. Its emergency application asked the justices to immediately order California to set aside 20,000 mail ballots, NYT Politics reported.

The Supreme Court rejected the request that same day, Associated Press reported. The decision came on the eve of the November 3 midterm elections. No justices publicly dissented, according to NDTV Top Stories.

California is not required to segregate the disputed ballots under the emergency order the administration sought. BBC News reported on November 3 that the rejection essentially ends the administration's bid to disqualify those ballots in the state.

The decision concerns the administration's attempt to stop or separate the count. The citizenship allegations remain disputed by local officials, as NBC News reported, and should not be read as established findings about the voters.