A Federal Judge Temporarily Bars DOJ and DHS From Threatening Election Workers With Prosecution Over Suspected Noncitizen Ballots
Judge Trina Thompson says the administration likely violated the Voting Rights Act's ban on voter intimidation. The Ninth Circuit separately refused to let California set aside about 20,000 mail ballots.
The Trump administration took two court losses on election enforcement on Friday, four days before Election Day, Fox News reports.
The order. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee, issued a temporary restraining order barring the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security from threatening state and local election workers with criminal prosecution for processing ballots from voters the administration says are ineligible. She found the agencies likely violated the Voting Rights Act's prohibition on voter intimidation. "One of the hallmarks of a fair election is the freedom to exercise the right to vote free from threat, fear, or intimidation," she wrote in the eight-page order.
What it covers. The order bars federal officials from coercing election workers into halting ballot processing solely because of such allegations. It also bars them from demanding that officials remove registered voters from the rolls, refuse them ballots, or set aside or decline to count their ballots based only on those allegations. Thompson also ordered the administration to tell state and local governments that received the disputed letters that the demands and prosecution threats in them are blocked.
The case. Labor unions and civil rights groups, including the Service Employees International Union and the NAACP, brought the suit. Thompson wrote that "ballots have already been issued" and "Americans have already begun voting," and that the public interest favors letting election workers do their jobs under federal law and established procedure.
The administration's position. Fox says the administration has sought voter registration information from states ahead of the Nov. 3 election, arguing its efforts aim to prevent noncitizen voting and protect election integrity. Fox says it asked the Justice Department for comment.
The second loss. Earlier Friday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Justice Department's emergency request to make California set aside mail ballots tied to roughly 20,000 voters federal officials identified as likely noncitizens while their citizenship was verified. Our earlier coverage of that fight is on the site.
Note for readers: a temporary restraining order is an early step, not a final ruling on the merits. The finding that the agencies "likely" violated the law is the judge's preliminary view. This is the Fox News account, with Reuters contributing, and we have not read the order itself.