The US Supreme Court on Monday swiftly rejected a request from the Trump administration to force California to separate thousands of mail-in ballots, which the administration claims were sent by non-US citizens. The court declined to intervene in a case concerning 20,000 people whom the Republican administration has identified as likely non-citizens on the California voter roll.
The decision came just hours after the administration sought Supreme Court intervention. In California, the Trump administration had requested that the disputed ballots be set aside while voters' citizenship is verified. California officials said the list is clearly full of errors and that separating the ballots could effectively deny the right to vote to eligible voters.
The Supreme Court did not provide detailed reasoning for rejecting the Trump administration's request. The justices had previously, in September, rejected Trump's attempt to restrict mail-in ballots nationwide. The US midterm elections are held on Tuesday.
The Trump Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to compel California election officials to separate 20,000 mail-in ballots that the administration claims were submitted by non-citizens. In a separate, related case, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop demanding that California election officials separate the ballots. The federal judge wrote that the executive branch likely violated the Elections Clause, which grants exclusive authority over election rules to the states and Congress.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state remains on guard against further interference by Trump or his allies in voting or ballot counting, and promised to prosecute anyone who attempts to influence the election. Trump, meanwhile, had an approval rating among voters of just 32 per cent. He released a video in which he repeated his promise to all adult citizens that if Republicans win, everyone will have $5,000 in their pocket. The payout would cost the state $1.2 trillion.
Asked how quickly he would end the war with Iran, Trump said it was not a war. He claimed there had been no shooting for months. Early media reports suggested that the United States had just carried out defensive strikes on some Iranian targets in the Strait of Hormuz ahead of the midterm elections.
In Michigan, Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens, who announced she would now support the Republican candidate for the US Senate, defended her decision in an interview today. Stevens rejected any claim that she was forced into the decision to withdraw her support and back Mike Rogers, a former Republican congressman. The El-Sayed campaign announced that on Sunday, the day Stevens announced her support for Rogers, it received $2.4 million in donations. The campaign noted that this was a one-day record in fundraising for his Senate candidacy. El-Sayed's staff highlighted that more than 26,000 people contributed for the first time on Sunday. The Cook Political Report changed its rating of the race from toss-up to leaning Democrat.
The latest and final New York Times and Siena College poll before the midterm elections shows that Abdul El-Sayed leads Mike Rogers by 11 percentage points in the race for the US Senate in Michigan, outside the margin of error. The poll was conducted before Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens announced she would support Rogers in that race. In Austin, Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is receiving enthusiastic applause from the audience.
