Washington:The Trump administration has requested the US Supreme Court to mandate California election officials to segregate mail-in ballots from over 20,000 registered voters suspected of being noncitizens by federal authorities.

According to Anadolu Agency – English, this request was submitted on Monday in an emergency application by US Solicitor General D. John Sauer. The application seeks a "limited injunction" to prevent California from mixing the ballots of citizens with those of suspected noncitizens, asserting that such a measure would not invalidate any votes but would provide time to verify the eligibility of the suspected noncitizen voters.

The emergency filing aims to overturn lower federal court rulings that have declined to isolate the contested ballots just before Tuesday's midterm elections, with millions of early ballots already cast nationwide. Sauer emphasized the necessity of emergency intervention to prevent the irretrievable commingling of challenged ballots with lawful ones by county election workers.

The federal list of over 20,000 individuals was compiled through database cross-checks by US Citizenship and Immigration Services and manual reviews by Homeland Security investigators. Although federal officials provided this list to California authorities in mid-October, state officials have not set aside the ballots in question.

Justice Department attorneys argue that federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections and assert that federal statutes take precedence over state election rules.