The Justice Department on Friday moved to drop its lawsuit against the state of California that attempted to force election officials to set aside roughly 20,000 ballots for voters the federal government alleged were not American citizens.

The move comes after the Supreme Court declined to get involved ahead of election day, allowing a lower court order to stand that determined the government's request "would wreak havoc and disrupt the election." 

The Supreme Court had not given a reason for its ruling, but it also previously rejected the administration's push to restrict mail ballots around the country in September.

The request to dismiss the case comes days after Republicans' suffered significant losses in the midterm elections and a week before a scheduled hearing where a special master was slated to evaluate the accuracy of the list. State officials claimed the list was out of date and includes legitimate voters, according to the Associated Press.

Federal prosecutors admitted in the motion to dismiss that by the time of the upcoming hearing, the state will have already "commingled the challenged ballots with lawful ones," and would therefore no longer be necessary.

“The relief the United States sought and needed is no longer available—rendering voluntary dismissal necessary,” the motion said.

California has processed approximately 9 million ballots as of Friday, with nearly 5 million still left to be counted, according to state election officials.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.