Supreme Court rejects Trump administration bid to cancel 20,000 California ballots

The US Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to cancel 20,000 mail-in ballots in California. The failure of the effort by President Donald Trump's administration, just before the midterm elections, is a major setback for them in Tuesday's vote.

The Trump administration alleged that the people who sent in these ballots by mail are not US citizens at all. It also feared that some of them may have voted illegally.

Raising that allegation, the US Department of Justice had petitioned the Supreme Court to order California election officials to set aside some twenty thousand mail-in ballots. The Supreme Court rejected that petition.

President Trump has repeatedly claimed that voter fraud is widespread in the United States. He alleges that Democrats could rig the election by allowing immigrants to vote illegally.

Trump has blamed the mail-in voting system for these allegations. Many Democrat-controlled states allow voting by this method.

California has about 26 million registered voters. Several lower courts had earlier ruled in favour of the election officials. Their argument was that the US federal government is trying to interfere in a state election and also to create doubt about the election result.

California has the largest number of seats, 52, in the House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress.

Various studies and state government audits have shown that voting by people who are not voters, including non-US citizens, is very rare.

US voters go to the polls on Tuesday in the midterm elections. The vote will decide whether control of Congress stays with President Trump's Republican Party or passes to the Democratic Party.

In these midterms, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate's 100 seats are being contested. Republicans currently hold 218 seats in the House and Democrats 214. In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats, while Democrats have 45 including the support of two independent senators. A majority requires 218 seats in the House and 51 in the Senate.

Political analysts believe the main contests in the election will be over about 40 House seats and 10 to 12 Senate seats.