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Supreme court rules against Trump over bid to force California to set aside ballots

The Guardian Read the original

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13 facts found in the article, 8 checked

Article published

Checked with claude-haiku-5-5 · Method 2026-10-10.

Verified facts

  1. Confirmed The US Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration's attempt to force California election officials to segregate and not count ballots from people the justice department claims are non-citizens.

    AI Several results report that the Supreme Court on Monday (November 2, 2026) denied the Trump administration's request to make California set aside or separate out about 20,000 mail ballots that officials allege came from noncitizens, which matches the core of the claim. The results describe a one-sentence order with no explanation, and the AP, NBC, Washington Post and The Hill reports appear to draw on the same court order.

  2. Confirmed The justice department claims that 20,000 non-citizens were on California's voter rolls.

    AI Multiple results report that the Justice Department claims more than 20,000 'likely' noncitizens are on California's voter rolls, which matches the core of the claim. The results describe these as 'likely' noncitizens flagged by DHS-DOJ data rather than confirmed noncitizens, a qualifier the claim omits but which does not change its core.

  3. Confirmed In mid-October, the justice department delivered a USB drive with names to Los Angeles and Sacramento election officials, giving them only 48 hours to review the list.

    AI Multiple results agree that DOJ sent a letter on October 13 with a password-protected thumb drive listing names of suspected noncitizens and a 48-hour deadline to review it. The results explicitly place the drive with Los Angeles County officials, but do not explicitly say a drive was delivered to Sacramento; they say only that the Secretary of State's office received a demand to review the list.

  4. Confirmed Dean Logan, Los Angeles county clerk and recorder, said the Department of Justice has not provided the underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions that individuals are ineligible to vote.

    AI The county's official statement from Dean Logan says the Department of Justice has not provided the underlying evidence, source, or methodology supporting its assertions that individuals are ineligible to vote, matching the claim. A court filing (result 3) reproduces the same statement, but it is the same original county statement, not an independent source.

  5. Confirmed US district judge David Carter rejected the administration's request to segregate ballots in a ruling on 28 October.

    AI Multiple results state that U.S. District Judge David Carter ruled on October 28 and rejected the Trump administration's/Justice Department's request to make California segregate or sequester ballots of likely noncitizens. The AP report's 'Wednesday' ruling also matches October 28, 2026. Several of these reports trace back to the same AP story, but the SCOTUSblog and Desert Sun reports independently give the October 28 date.

  6. Confirmed David Carter was nominated to the bench by Bill Clinton.

    AI Multiple results, including the White House press release from June 26, 1998 (titled 'President Clinton nominates David O. Carter to the federal bench'), state that David Carter was nominated to the federal bench by Bill Clinton. The Wikipedia and CourtListener entries also list Clinton as the appointing president, with the nomination dated June 25, 1998.

  7. Confirmed Carter wrote that the federal government had never before in American history, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon its own constitutional elections procedures.

    AI Multiple results quote Judge David Carter's written ruling with the same sentence: never before in American history has the federal government, on the eve of an election, sought to coerce a state and local government to abandon their own constitutional elections procedures. The claim's core (Carter, the statement, the federal government and the election context) matches; the results are largely repeating the same ruling text rather than independent sources.

  8. Confirmed The justice department has made a similar demand to segregate ballots in Washington state.

    AI Multiple results report that the Justice Department asked Washington state to set aside or sequester ballots from about 400 to 405 people it says may be noncitizens, which matches the claim's core. The PBS report explicitly calls this a "similar request," and the NBC and CBS reports describe it directly. The specific details (the acting U.S. attorney Neil Floyd and the 405-person list) are not needed to check the core and are consistent across sources.

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