Trump DOJ Waves White Flag After Supreme Court Election Smackdown

The Trump regime has abruptly abandoned its legal effort to force California to set aside ballots cast by thousands of voters it claimed might not be U.S. citizens, marking another embarrassing defeat for the Justice Department following a string of courtroom losses that reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

The retreat comes just days after the nation's highest court rejected the administration's emergency request to intervene in California's midterm elections—and as a separate legal challenge threatened to expose serious flaws in the government's purported list of nearly 21,000 suspected noncitizen voters.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta celebrated the development Friday, accusing the administration of attempting to interfere with the state's elections and disenfranchise eligible voters.

"After four court losses in a row all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump Administration has given up its latest unlawful effort to interfere with California's elections and disenfranchise eligible voters," Bonta wrote.

"Rest assured: California has and always will defend your fundamental right to vote."

The administration had sought to require California election officials to segregate mail-in ballots associated with approximately 20,000 people the federal government suspected of being noncitizens, pending verification of their eligibility.

But on November 2, just one day before the midterm elections, the Supreme Court denied the Justice Department's emergency application for an injunction pending appeal.

The order was brief and unequivocal. The application, presented to Justice Elena Kagan and referred to the full Court, was denied.

The administration's subsequent decision to drop the litigation effectively ends its effort to impose those ballot restrictions through the lawsuit.

And the government's underlying evidence was facing some deeply uncomfortable scrutiny.

In a separate federal lawsuit brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and individual plaintiff Pedro Trujillo, attorneys challenged the administration's alleged noncitizen voter list, arguing that it threatened the voting rights of lawful American citizens.

An October 31 court filing detailed an expert analysis of the government's list, which contained 20,930 names.

The findings raised serious questions about the accuracy of the administration's voter-identification methods.

According to the filing, researchers Mathew Barreto, Ph.D., and data scientist Michael Rios examined the federal list against California voter records and information about CHIRLA's citizen members and clients.

Their conclusions were striking.

The researchers identified at least 22 entries on CHIRLA's citizen-member list that fully matched names on the government's supposedly ineligible voter list, using stringent criteria including first name, middle name, last name, date of birth, and exact address.

In other words, according to the plaintiffs' expert analysis, the government's list of allegedly ineligible voters included people identified by the organization as American citizens.

The researchers also found that 8,880 names—approximately 42 percent of the federal government's list—could not be located anywhere in California's current voter file.

Using broader matching criteria similar to those relied upon by federal officials, the researchers identified another 6,140 CHIRLA citizen entries potentially at risk of being incorrectly associated with the government's list.

And the potential implications extended far beyond CHIRLA's membership.

California has approximately 3.8 million naturalized citizens on its voter rolls. Extrapolating their findings, the researchers estimated that the government's matching methods could produce thousands of incorrect identifications, with the number varying substantially depending on the criteria used.

Those figures were projections presented by the plaintiffs' experts, not confirmed totals of voters wrongly identified by the government. Nevertheless, they raised substantial concerns about the reliability of the administration's approach.

The filing warned that eligible voters could face challenges to their ballots, removal from voter registration rolls, or even erroneous criminal investigations.

Attorneys also described the chilling effect the administration's actions had allegedly created among naturalized citizens, including fears about voting and potential prosecution.

CHIRLA argued that it had been forced to divert staff time and organizational resources away from its normal work to counter confusion and fear generated by the government's actions.

The organization said its mission of helping eligible immigrants become citizens, register to vote, and participate in elections had been directly undermined.

The Justice Department's retreat also came as a November 13 hearing was reportedly scheduled to examine the government's list of suspected noncitizens.

The timing raises questions about whether the administration was prepared to defend its evidence under further judicial scrutiny. The available filings do not establish why DOJ decided to abandon the case.

For months, Trump and his allies have promoted allegations of widespread noncitizen voting as justification for aggressive federal intervention in election administration without any evidence.

But noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections, and the existence of a name on a government-generated matching list does not establish that a person is ineligible to vote, much less that they committed voter fraud.

The California litigation illustrated the potential consequences of treating uncertain database matches as grounds for challenging people's voting rights.

The administration sought extraordinary judicial intervention immediately before a national election. Its emergency request was rejected by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, independent experts working for voting-rights plaintiffs identified serious potential problems with the government's evidence.

Now, the Justice Department has walked away from its California ballot-segregation fight.

This story was originally published by MeidasTouch on Nov 7, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add MeidasTouch as a Preferred Source by clicking here.