The US Supreme Court rejects segregating the votes of 20,000 ‘probable non-citizens’ in California

The Supreme Court rejects the emergency request of the Department of Justice to segregate the votes of 20,000 ‘probable non-citizens’ in California.

The response arrived on Monday night, the eve of the legislative elections that will be voted on this Tuesday, in the form of a single-line order, without a signature and without recording individual votes. And without asking the opposing party to present its reply.

A single line order: what the Supreme Court has decided and what it has not

The court has not gone into the substance. Has resolved by way of shadow docketthe express channel of the Supreme Court: the procedure by which it decides urgent requests without an oral hearing and with minimal or no motivation. The DOJ requested that election officials in California They would physically separate the ballots from those 20,000 names before certifying the count. The Supreme Court has said no and it has taken a line to say it.

California has fought it with the argument of its attorney general, the Democrat Rob Bonta: The list contains errors and segregating ballots from it would deprive legal citizens of the vote.. ‘This latest decision should put an end to the administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders,’ Bonta said.

To the Supreme Court, the road was short. He Ninth Circuitthe appeals court that covers California and eight other Western states, had already rejected the DOJ’s urgent request, and the department then went to the bottom rung of the American judicial system. The appeal did not go into the merits: there was no material time to reorganize the electoral administration less than 24 hours before the opening of the polls.

When the electoral calendar and judicial review collide, the US Supreme Court protects the calendar. It is its oldest and most uncomfortable jurisprudence.

The one who has claimed the goal is the governor Gavin Newsom. ‘California has just achieved a historic defeat of the Supreme Court against donald trump‘, he wrote on social networks, emphasizing that the court rejected the request ‘without even asking the other party to respond: something unprecedented.’ This unprecedented nature is his statement and does not appear in the order, which does not include any explanation. What was confirmed: no particular vote and a response in record time.

What is at stake in California and why is it watched from Madrid?

California votes this Tuesday for governor — the Democrat Xavier Becerra versus the republican Steve Hilton — and, like the rest of the country, decides who controls Congress starting in January 2027. The state is reliably Democratic in presidential elections, but several congressional races are decided by a few thousand votes.

What is being decided in California and a dozen other districts is which Congress Trump will have in his last two years. In Madrid that translates into money: The stability of the tariff framework agreed between Brussels and Washington in 2025 depends on who controls the Capitol. A hostile House can stop an escalation of tariffs; It may also refuse to ratify any relief. For Andalusian olive oil, wine, table olives, and automobiles — billions of euros of annual exports — the difference is a stable tariff or one that is reviewed every quarter.

Spanish companies with a presence in the United States —Inditex and Santanderamong others—do not lose a contract because the Supreme Court rejects a request from the DOJ. But they all read the same indicator: the ability of the world’s leading economy to resolve its institutional disputes without breaking the electoral calendar.

Today it has endured.

Washington Logic

He Department of Justice He did not act in a vacuum. The thesis that the administration has maintained since 2025 is that the American electoral census has an unresolved integrity problem: the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, known as ‘motor voter’ (allows registration when renewing the driver’s license), pushes states to update their lists more frequently than many comply with. Regarding this diagnosis, the coalition that supports donald trump demands that the federal government be able to audit the censuses and separate the votes of those who do not prove citizenship. California was the natural setting for the test.

The reason for the no has less to do with the clock than with the right. The doctrine Purcellestablished by the Supreme Court itself in 2006, maintains that federal courts should not alter electoral rules in the weeks prior to a vote if there is a risk of confusing the voter. With schools opening within hours, reordering ballots in the largest state in the country was only manageable after counting. In Washington it is cited Bush vs. Gore2000: there the Supreme Court intervened to close a recount, not to open it. The difference between both cases is the calendar, not the ideology.

The calendar rules.

The matter is not closed. The DOJ remains open in its investigations into the state censuses and the list of 20,000 names remains in its possession. New requests can be expected after the scrutiny, when the doctrine Purcell stop playing by the clock. The court has not said that it cares little about the substance; He said that he doesn’t play today.

For Spain, the decisive window is not this week but January 3, 2027, when the Congress is formed from the polls. The review of the tariff framework with the EU, the defense spending schedule that Washington demands from NATO allies and the tone of the bilateral relationship depend on its composition. None of that is settled in a California court. All of that leans into an election that California helps decide.

Case File

• The case: The DOJ asked the Supreme Court to force California to separate the ballots of 20,000 people identified as ‘probable non-citizens’ on the eve of the November 3 legislative elections.
• Key data: Single line order, without signature and without particular votes; The court did not request a response from the opposing party. The Ninth Circuit had already denied the urgent request. California elects governor between Xavier Becerra and Steve Hilton.
• For Spain: The legislative ones determine the Congress that is constituted on January 3, 2027 and, with it, the margin of the EU-US tariff framework. USA that affects Spanish exports.