Judge Orders Trump Administration to Stop Threatening Election Officials With Prosecution
A federal judge's temporary restraining order bars the Justice Department from threatening state and local election workers over its alleged non-citizen voter lists, and from demanding that officials purge voters, refuse ballots or set ballots aside - in force through November 16, past Election Day.
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration's Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who do not comply with its demands over alleged non-citizen voting, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson issued the temporary restraining order on Friday, October 30, in a lawsuit brought by election workers' unions and civil rights groups, days before the November 3 midterm elections that will decide control of Congress.
Thompson wrote that 'the public has a paramount interest in ensuring that election officials and workers are able to carry out their work in accordance with federal law and election procedure,' with the official Election Day only a couple of days away, Reuters reported. The order bars the administration from demanding that officials remove voters from statewide rolls, refuse ballots to specific voters, or segregate ballots cast in the midterms based on the administration's list of alleged non-citizen voters.
The order, in SEIU v. U.S. Department of Justice in the Northern District of California, runs until 5 p.m. on November 16 and also covers the Department of Homeland Security, according to a summary of the court order read by this desk. The departments must tell every government that received their ballot letters that the threats are blocked, and the Justice Department must disclose any pending search-warrant applications or grand jury subpoenas tied to its voter lists. The department had demanded that California set aside about 20,000 ballots and Washington 405, the summary said.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment on the ruling, Reuters reported. The department must respond by noon Monday, and a preliminary injunction hearing is set for November 13. For election workers in Florida - where letters went to officials in all 50 states, according to the reporting - the order means ballots are processed under state and federal election law, not under a federal prosecution threat, through the end of voting and the first count.
