Julia Paskin
is the local host of All Things Considered and the L.A. Report Evening Edition.
Published June 24, 2023 6:00 AM
The Griffith Observatory will be the site for amateur stargazing this summer with star parties running from June through September.
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Topline:
Today is the start of the seasonal, free Star Parties at Griffith Observatory that run from June through September.
What we cover: Local amateur astronomer, Spencer Soohoo shares the best viewing spots, apps and points of interest in the sky this summer.
What to expect: Soohoo says volunteers from the Los Angeles Astronomical Society will set up telescopes on the lawn and invite people to look through them. He tells us: "I personally focus on the moon because you'd be amazed at how many people have never seen the moon through a telescope in their lives," Soohoo said.
It's officially summer in Southern California, and the warm evenings ahead are perfect for taking in the night sky. Today is also the start of the seasonal, free Star Parties at Griffith Observatory that run from June through September.
If you go, you might meet local amateur astronomer, Spencer Soohoo. By day, he’s a research scientist at Cedar Sinai but in his off time, he’s an active member of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society.
We asked Soohoo for some advice on how to get into amateur astronomy in Southern California — if you’re already into stargazing — how to up your game.
Getting started
To kick us off, we asked Soohoo to recommend a few places where the stars may be easier to spot:
Joshua Tree: He says the national park "is starting to get a little more light pollution now than before but it's still fairly decent."
I-5 near Frasier Park: "There's a couple of turnouts you can go to."
Saddleback Butte State Park: Soohoo has this caveat: "There's a lot of light now from the Lancaster-Palmdale area. But the last time I went, you could still see the Milky Way without too much trouble."
For really dark skies: You have to drive a distance, probably about an 1 1/2 to 2 hours away.
Not up for that drive? Soohoo says "to be honest with you, if you're OK with looking at the planets and some of the brighter nebula, you can even do that from downtown L.A."
What can you see in SoCal this time of year?
Soohoo says right now the only night object "really prominent" is Venus.
"If you are up around maybe midnight or 1 a.m., you can see Saturn and Jupiter will rise a couple hours after that," he says.
How to spot planets
We asked Soohoo what he'd recommend folks use if they want to know where the constellations and planets are specifically in the sky.
Soohoo says his favorite smartphone app is Sky Safari ("I think it's about $9 to $10") but there are other free apps to check out.
"They're tied into the GPS in your phone and they'll show you what the sky looks like at that particular time," he says. "Some of them have what they call augmented reality. So they'll actually use the camera on the phone and superimpose the background of what you're seeing along with the sky chart."
Will the northern lights be back in Southern California?
Recently and unexpectedly, people were able to catch a glimpse of the northern lights exceptionally far south. So we asked Soohoo if that's going to be possible over the summer months.
He doubts it.
"It's rare that you'd be able to see them this far south," he says. "But I know that the last time you could see the northern lights from Mount Wilson — that one night that they were visible — the marine layer had moved in and blocked out all the light pollution from downtown L.A. and so you could see the northern lights there."
The aurora was visible at Mount Wilson last night! (Video is a loop of a few seconds of a time-lapse video from our north tower cam). 😮 pic.twitter.com/ITeTXjmBnv
— Mount Wilson Observatory (@MtWilsonObs) April 24, 2023
What to expect at Griffith Observatory
Griffith Observatory hosts monthly star parties during the summer that are free to the public. Volunteers from telescope groups and the L.A. Astronomical Society are there and Soohoo says participants can expect 25 to 40 telescopes to be set up on the grounds.
"We basically set up our telescopes on the lawn and point them at whatever target we want to and invite people to look through them," he explains. "And I personally focus on the moon because you'd be amazed at how many people have never seen the moon through a telescope in their lives. I can't tell you how many languages I've heard people say, 'Wow, it's just incredible.'"
Soohoo said he got his "greatest thrill" from helping an 82-year-old woman who had never looked through a telescope in her life.
"I showed her the moon and just to watch the expression on her face as it lit up — that's why we do it," Soohoo said.
How to attend
The Griffith Observatory lists the following dates for public star parties:
Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published November 3, 2026 5:00 AM
From left to right, Daniel Moisés, Elisa Nixon, Julia Ahumada Grob and Rasheed Ali on stage in the David Henry Hwang Theater in downtown L.A.
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Topline:
Eaton Fire survivors recently took their experiences to the stage. It's part of a national tour of disaster survivors putting on similar events in their own communities.
Why it matters: In a play by and for fire survivors, longtime Altadena residents Gayle Nicholls-Ali and Rasheed Ali turn interviews with displaced neighbors into a script for a play.
Read on ... for more about what the performance meant to the people who made it happen.
Altadena artist and muralist Austin Scott is painting a portrait in a courtyard outside the Union Center for the Arts in Little Tokyo. As a steady stream of people walk in, he sketches some details of the face of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers. She wears a wide-brimmed purple hat, her eyes are closed, her face tilts upward toward sunbeams.
Her name is Evelyn McClendon. The retired Pasadena school bus driver was the first victim whose body was found in the rubble of the Eaton Fire in Altadena.
“It’s going to be a portrait of her face made up of little portraits of all the other faces of the people we lost in the fire,” Scott says.
Something like a memorial, he says, for the 19 people who perished.
Altadena muralist and artist Austin Scott paints a portrait of Evelyn McClendon, the first identified victim of the Eaton Fire.
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In front of the building entrance, as people eat tacos and chat, Emeka Chukwurah starts the music.
“Can you see it? We rising up,” he raps as his father, Onochie, and members of their band play drums, guitar and traditional African instruments. They specialize in Nigerian highlife fusion music.
Chukwurah lost his Altadena business, Rhythms of the Village, in the fire. The store sold goods sourced from countries across Africa and hosted drum, dance and Nigerian language classes.
They’re finally about to reopen in a temporary space.
“What we went through is life-changing. It was very traumatic,” Chukwurah says. “But to turn something so traumatic into triumphant moments like these and create new memories, I'm truly grateful for how far we have come.”
Emeka Chukwurah lost his business, Rhythms of the Village, in the Eaton Fire. He's close to reopening in a temporary space.
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Putting real experiences on stage
The idea for tonight’s play was born after the Eaton Fire, when photographer Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband, Rasheed, returned to Altadena after a trip to the Bahamas. Their home and community of 30 years were gone.
So they sought out their displaced neighbors. Gayle photographed them. The two collected more than 20 hours of interviews. After the fire, during mutual aid efforts, they happened to meet Sunder Ganglani, the artistic director for Cornerstone Theater Company. With Ganglani’s help, they turned the interview transcripts into the play’s script.
Union Center for the Arts is the theater home of East West Players, considered the nation's first Asian Pacific American theater company.
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“And so the four speakers on stage, all of whom are fire survivors, end up speaking around 20 different people, you know, from every walk of life,” Ganglani says.
Eventually, the nonprofit Extreme Weather Survivors, which connects disaster survivors with each other, got in touch as well. The play became a part of a national tour of similar events hosted by disaster survivors across the country ahead of the midterms.
On this October evening, the crowd settles into the seats of the David Henry Hwang Theater. Gayle Nicholls-Ali takes the stage to applause.
“Tonight is a chance to see one another more fully, to feel something together, to remember that we still belong to Altadena even if we're not living there right at the moment,” she says.
The show begins
The lights go down. Four actors walk onto the stage, one by one.
“My name is Rasheed. My name is Francesca. Shakira. My name is Sam. Darina. My name is Sunny.”
As they speak the stories, Nicholls-Ali rotates pictures of the people she interviewed, projected onto sheets hung behind the actors.
The performers onstage during "From Ashes We Gather."
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The building that houses this theater — the Union Center for the Arts — has been privy to some of the biggest events in Los Angeles history. It was a church for Japanese Americans before their mass incarceration during World War II, then a community center for Black Americans during the Great Migration. It was witness to racial attacks known as the Zoot Suit Riots, and was damaged by the Northridge earthquake.
Today, the art space and theater continues to be a place to process pain, to find refuge.
Like the actors in the play. All of them are fire survivors.
Their voices become a chorus with phrases repeated by survivors.
“Driving back to Altadena for the first time was really chimney after chimney after chimney…”
“They killed 19 of our neighbors.”
“This is our generational wealth. We don't want to lose that.”
The questions they were constantly asked: “How are you? Where are you? What's going on? Were you affected?”
Rasheed Ali performs the piece he composed for the play.
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At the close, the actors exit one by one. Rasheed Ali is alone on stage. The musician and composer sits at the keyboard and plays a piano piece telling the story of Altadena before, during and after the fire.
At the end of the night, some special guests take the stage, including Zaire Calvin, the brother of Evelyn McClendon, whose portrait was being painted earlier. He performs a rap he wrote with his cousin. The show ends with Medusa, who grew up in Altadena and is a hip-hop legend who has collaborated with icons like Tupac Shakur, Erykah Badu and Common.
A healing moment
Gayle Nicholls-Ali thanks the crowd at the end of the show. At left, Zaire Calvin looks on.
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After the show, as everyone packs up, Rasheed Ali is reflective.
“For me, it was a breakthrough,” he says. “The fire has a paralyzing effect on your creativity.”
Gayle Nicholls-Ali feels the same.
“I have not been able to feel creative because this fire is like a big knot in your stomach that you can't get rid of,” she says. “And so this helps to unknot the knot.”
Not just for her and Rasheed, she hopes, but for their community too.
Vote centers are open until 8 p.m. People who are in line by 8 p.m. are legally allowed to cast their ballots.
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Topline:
All vote centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday to vote in person or drop off your vote-by-mail ballot. If you're in line by 8 p.m., you are legally allowed to cast your ballot.
What's next: Keep in mind that in tight races, particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day. The first batch of results (typically ballots received before Election Day) will be posted shortly after the polls close.
Election Day is here, and with it comes your last chance to vote in the 2026 general election.
So far, a lot of people have cast ballots. Early voting turnout in L.A. and Orange counties has been higher than the previous midterm cycle in 2022.
All vote centers are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday for in-person voting or to drop off your vote-by-mail ballot — in L.A. County, there are more than 600 to choose from. Remember: If you’re in line to vote by 8 p.m., stay in line. You’re legally allowed to cast your ballot if you get in line by the 8 p.m. deadline.
Tip: You aren’t required to bring your vote-by-mail ballot with you — those get voided during the check-in process.
If you haven’t registered yet or you’re worried you’ll have an issue, election workers can help you. California allows same-day registration. (Check your registration status here.) If you register at the same time that you vote, you’ll cast a provisional ballot. Officials will verify your registration information and count all ballots of voters who are eligible.
You can also drop your ballot in an official ballot drop box anywhere in the state before 8 p.m.
If you prefer to mail your ballot in, just make sure it’s postmarked by Tuesday. No postage is required. (Pro tip: If you’re mailing your ballot, take it into the post office to ensure it’s postmarked on time. It'll be counted as long as it arrives within 7 days of Election Day.)
You can also designate another person to return your completed ballot, as long as they aren’t paid. Make sure they fill out the envelope as directed for another person returning your ballot.
Here’s a map of ballot drop boxes near Metro stations.
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Lyft is offering discounted rides with the code “VOTE26.” You’ll get 50% off up to $10.
What to do if you can't get to your local vote center
Not to worry — if you’re out of town, you can drop off your ballot at an official ballot drop box or polling location anywhere in California. It will be routed to the correct county. There’s no need to drive back to the vote center closest to where you live.
The same goes for voting by mail. Remember: If you have a vote-by-mail ballot, you can get it postmarked at any post office. As long as it’s postmarked by Tuesday and arrives within 7 days of Election Day, it will be counted.
What to do if you make a mistake on your ballot
If you make an error on your vote-by-mail ballot, you can draw a line through it and make your correction.
You can also go to any vote center, request a new ballot and vote in person.
How to sign your ballot
Make sure to sign your ballot envelope with the signature that matches what your county registrar has on file, which is probably the signature on your driver’s license or state ID. Otherwise, your ballot might get flagged. If that happens, you’ll be notified by mail and will have a chance to fix it.
What to do if you come across an unfamiliar ballot item
It’s not required to vote on every item. If you haven’t had time to research, it’s OK to skip a race or ballot measure you’re unsure about — or several of them if you like. Whatever votes you do cast will still be counted, even if parts of your ballot are left blank.
Follow LAist’s Voter Game Plan. We’ll keep you updated as results come in after 8 p.m.
When will my ballot be counted?
Keep in mind that in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day.
Election results will start posting shortly after the polls close at 8 p.m.
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In L.A. County, the first batch of results released includes vote-by-mail ballots received before Election Day (8:30 to 8:45 p.m.), followed by early votes cast at vote centers before Election Day (8:45 to 9:00 p.m.), then votes cast in-person on Election Day. This process is expected to wrap up in the early hours of Nov. 4. Then, additional results will be released following a schedule you can see on the county's site. In California, ballots postmarked on or before Nov. 3 are counted toward the results as long as they arrive within seven days of the election.
County election officials must certify election results by Dec. 3.
If your mail-in ballot is rejected for any reason (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it.
If you come across any other challenges, be sure to let us know. We have reporters out across L.A. County, along with staff standing by to answer your questions.
What questions do you have about this election?
You ask, and we'll answer: Whether it's about who's funding the campaigns or how to track your ballot, we're here to help you understand the 2026 election.
Editor's note: A version of this story was first published in 2022, and we continue to update it for subsequent elections.
Keep up with LAist.
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Aaron Schrank
has been on the ground, reporting on homelessness and other issues in L.A. for more than a decade.
Published November 2, 2026 7:00 PM
The Skid Row Care Campus is L.A. County's main homeless services hub.
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Topline:
L.A. County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at its Skid Row Care Campus in August and has ended its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, the nonprofit that ran harm reduction there, effective Tuesday.
Why it matters: The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment. The pause comes amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row.
Why now: The county says the temporary pause stems “in part” from concerns raised by community stakeholders and local businesses.
What’s next: Homeless Health Care Los Angeles is laying off 134 workers. New providers have rehired many of them, the county says.
Los Angeles County quietly stopped handing out syringes and pipes at the county’s flagship services hub in Skid Row in August, and has now terminated the contract of the nonprofit that ran harm reduction programs there, the Department of Health Services told LAist.
The pause — which county officials said is temporary — began in August, “in part due to concerns that community stakeholders and local businesses raised to County leadership,” according to a statement provided to LAist by Thomas Lynch, a spokesperson for the county’s Department of Health Services.
The changes come amid a growing cluster of HIV cases in Skid Row and mounting pressure from the Trump administration and neighboring businesses on L.A. programs that distribute drug paraphernalia. Critics argue the programs enable drug addiction and contribute to crime in the area.
The goal of these programs is to keep people who use drugs alive and free of infections like HIV and hepatitis, while working to connect them with services including treatment.
In late August, the county Department of Public Health identified a cluster of HIV cases among people who live in and around Skid Row. As of Sunday, 15 people had been linked to it, 11 of them women, according to Becky Schlikerman, a spokesperson for that department.
In a statement, Schlikerman said both substance use and sexual transmission are being investigated as possible factors, and that the department is working with street medicine teams and harm reduction groups to expand HIV testing and prevention in the area.
“There is an active HIV outbreak in Skid Row, so reducing safe injection supplies to people who use drugs in this moment seems particularly dangerous,” said Ricky Bluthenthal, distinguished professor of population and public health sciences at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
The Skid Row Care Campus still distributes naloxone — the opioid overdose reversal drug — wound care supplies and safe sex supplies, Lynch said, but “distribution of syringes and pipes is currently on pause.”
He also said they have not set a date for syringe services to resume, that the pause applies only at the campus, and that staff are referring people to syringe programs elsewhere.
The state lists 24 authorized syringe services programs in L.A. County, according to the California Department of Public Health. Two are based in or next to Skid Row.
Harm reduction services are provided across much of L.A. County, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.
Darren Willett, director of the Center for Harm Reduction in Skid Row, in September of 2021.
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Provider layoffs
The county has also terminated its contract with Homeless Health Care Los Angeles effective Tuesday, county officials said. The county announced the change in an Aug. 28 statement, the same month the syringe and pipe pause began.
Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, one of L.A.’s best-known harm reduction providers, notified the state in September that it would permanently lay off 134 workers — including 117 employees at the Skid Row Care Campus — effective Tuesday, Nov. 3, according to state Employment Development Department records.
“Right now, HHCLA is being forced to say goodbye to some deeply valued staff and reduce services that some of LA’s most marginalized rely on every day,” the nonprofit wrote in an Instagram post in late September.
In the same post, Homeless Health Care Los Angeles said its jobs program for people in Skid Row “no longer exists.” The nonprofit said the program offered “real income, real pathways forward for people too often shut out of opportunity.”
The county is bringing in nonprofits St. Joseph Center and LA Community Health Project instead, officials said. Meanwhile, Social Model Recovery Systems will expand its existing services and Wesley Health Centers will continue providing healthcare on site.
In statements provided to LAist, L.A. County's health services and homelessness departments described the shake-up as “contractor changes” made as part of an effort to “strengthen operations.” Officials are updating campus protocols, “strengthening on-site safety” and expanding substance use treatment and healthcare, according to those statements.
County officials said they are committed to a transition that avoids disruption for people using the campus.
“Providers are hiring from within the Skid Row community and have worked hard to retain staff who were working for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles,” Lynch told LAist.
Those providers have hired more than 80 people so far, and nearly 90% previously worked for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, according to the department.
Representatives for Homeless Health Care Los Angeles did not respond to repeated requests for interview or comment.
The nonprofit has worked in Skid Row since the 1980s and ran the campus’s harm reduction and overdose response programs. It celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
A group of Skid Row community members and laid-off campus workers calling itself the Skid Row Coalition for Community Safety has launched a campaign saying L.A. County is “playing politics with people’s lives.”
“Supervisor Hilda Solis and LA County chose to cowardly abandon the recommendations of public health experts and the Skid Row community,” the group said in a statement on its website.
County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who represents the area and authored the 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan, told LAist in a statement that the decision to end Homeless Health Care Los Angeles’ contract was made jointly by the county’s health services and homelessness departments.
“Some services have been paused to allow the incoming provider to onboard staff and establish operations,” Solis said. “This is a necessary part of coordinating the transition.”
“I am proud of the Skid Row Action Plan and its commitment to expanding low-barrier services, health care, and pathways to housing,” Solis’ statement continued. “That commitment remains unchanged.”
Solis completes her final term next month and is on Tuesday’s ballot running for California’s 38th Congressional District, which covers parts of eastern Los Angeles and Orange counties but not Skid Row.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Solis represents Skid Row and authored a 2022 motion that created the Skid Row Action Plan.
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Criticism of the campus
The Skid Row Care Campus opened in spring 2025. County officials call it the first community-designed homeless services hub in the nation.
The campus logs more than 2,700 visits a day, a count that includes repeat visitors, according to the county. It costs about $26 million a year to operate. Funding is secured through June 2027. The budget for the following fiscal year has not been finalized.
The campus in the heart of Skid Row drew scrutiny this year. In May, Fox 11 aired a segment featuring Estela Lopez, executive director of the Downtown Industrial Business Improvement District, who called the campus a “meth mansion.” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass told the TV station she was concerned about problems at the campus.
LAPD responded 693 times to the two blocks around it between January and late May, and recorded four homicides there in the first four months of 2026, according to LAPD figures first reported by Fox 11.
On Oct. 8, federal agents and LAPD officers carried out a drug sweep dubbed “Operation Save Skid Row,” centered about a block from the campus. Federal prosecutors charged 28 people and arrested 23, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing agencies to stop funding “so-called ‘harm reduction’” efforts. In April, federal health officials barred grantees from using federal money for pipes and drug test strips, on top of a longstanding ban on federal funds for syringes.
L.A. County officials have not said whether federal policy played a role in the pause. The campus is funded through opioid settlement money, Medi-Cal managed care plans, the state and the county — not federal grants, according to officials.
County officials and employees have credited harm reduction programs with helping drive down overdose deaths, which fell 6% in 2025 — the third straight annual decline — according to the county Department of Public Health.
A person walks past an encampment of unhoused people in the Skid Row community. Skid Row is home to thousands of people who are either experiencing homelessness on the streets or living in shelters.
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Harm reduction’s track record
Harm reduction programs including needle and syringe exchanges started in L.A. more than three decades ago in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. L.A. County declared a local public health emergency in 2000 to authorize syringe exchange under a new state law, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.
People who use fentanyl in L.A. have increasingly shifted from injecting it to smoking it, according to a 2025 study co-authored by Bluthenthal, with USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
Bluthenthal called the recent syringe and pipe distribution pause at the Skid Row Care Campus “obviously a setback.”
“Harm reduction programs, through providing social and material support, have been one of the most consistent pathways to treatment for people who are currently using illicitly purchased drugs,” he said.
In a statement on the pause, officials at L.A. County’s Department of Health Services said people who receive syringe services are three times more likely to reduce or stop using drugs and five times more likely to enter substance use treatment.
John Raphling, an organizer with the Los Angeles Community Action Network based in Skid Row, said his group is “extremely concerned that the county is cutting these services” and that Skid Row residents “were not at all consulted.”
“Harm reduction services, like those provided by Homeless Health Care, help save lives, prevent the spread of disease, and allow people to survive and work through their recovery,” Raphling said.
Some Skid Row residents see it differently — including Don Garza, who has lived in the neighborhood for 27 years and resides in a single-room-occupancy building there.
“It’s not helping anyone,” Garza told LAist. “It exponentially accelerates the overdose deaths.”
“The part of harm reduction that we still need is the overdose prevention, but without the pipes and the needles,” Garza said. “We still need the Narcan because Skid Row is not going anywhere, and people are still gonna OD, and they're gonna die.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to wade into its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls.
What happened: The court denied taking up the Justice Department's appeal today, just hours after it was filed. Election Day is tomorrow.
Why now: The appeal was the department's latest foray into state election administration, which a federal judge referred to last week as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."
About the claims: The DOJ says it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens on California's voter roll whose ballots should not be counted until their citizenship can be verified. Over the weekend, data scientists at University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project were granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in another lawsuit and found that 42% of the names on the list do not appear on California's current voter roll. That analysis also found naturalized citizens on the DOJ's list.
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a last-minute request from the Department of Justice to wade into its unprecedented feud with California over the state's voter rolls.
The court denied taking up the Justice Department's appeal on Monday evening, just hours after it was filed. Election Day is Tuesday.
The appeal was the department's latest foray into state election administration, which a federal judge referred to last week as "a broad, ongoing pattern of attempted election interference by federal officials."
After that judge, David Carter, a Clinton appointee, and a divided 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected the DOJ's request to order California to set aside and stop processing the ballots of thousands of people, the DOJ sought injunctive relief from the high court.
The DOJ says it has identified 20,000 "likely" noncitizens on California's voter roll whose ballots should not be counted until their citizenship can be verified.
Courts so far have sided with California and Los Angeles County's arguments that the federal government's list is unreliable, and that creating a novel system to segregate ballots while voting is already underway is infeasible.
"[T]here is a material risk that granting the United States its requested relief would result in disenfranchisement and could jeopardize the County's entire election," 9th Circuit Judges Mark Bennett, a Trump appointee, and Gabriel Sanchez, a Biden appointee, wrote in their Friday decision rejecting the Justice Department's emergency request.
The two judges cited longstanding legal precedent, known as the Purcell principle, that election rules should not be altered on the eve of an election, as well as the fact that the Constitution gives states authority to run elections. The opinion also cited the National Voter Registration Act, which bars states from systematically removing ineligible voters within 90 days of a federal election.
The panel's third judge, Patrick Bumatay, also a Trump appointee, dissented.
The actual number of ballots in dispute is likely much smaller than 20,000, since county election officials have found that many of the people on DOJ's list did not have active voter registrations and were not mailed ballots.
Over the weekend, data scientists at University of California Los Angeles' Voting Rights Project were granted access to the DOJ's list through a court order in another lawsuit and found that 42% of the names on the list do not appear on California's current voter roll. That analysis also found naturalized citizens on the DOJ's list.
The Supreme Court's refusal to intervene comes as the Justice Department has been escalating its feud with California election officials.
In recent weeks, the Department of Justice has sent subpoenas to election officials in California, and reminded officials that they could be criminally prosecuted for allowing ineligible voters to cast ballots.
A federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary restraining order late Friday barring the Trump administration from threatening, intimidating or coercing election officials to demand they stop processing the ballots of registered voters that the federal government alleges are ineligible to vote. The federal government has appealed the order.
Copyright 2026 NPR
