A federal judge in California has stepped in to halt what she described as unlawful pressure on election workers, temporarily barring the Justice Department from threatening state and local officials with criminal prosecution over how they process ballots.
The order from Judge Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California delivers a setback to Trump administration efforts to tighten voting rules ahead of the 3 November midterm elections, targeting participation by people it claims might not be US citizens.
The sharply worded temporary restraining order follows a lawsuit filed by a labour union and civil rights groups against the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
“Defendants shall not threaten, intimidate or coerce state or local elections officials or workers to demand that they halt processing the ballots of any registered voter solely on the basis that the ballot belongs to an individual alleged by Defendants to be ineligible to vote,” Judge Thompson wrote.
She further directed that Justice Department officials “shall not threaten state or local election officials and workers with criminal prosecution for failure to comply” with those demands.
With President Donald Trump’s Republican Party facing the prospect of losing control of Congress in next Tuesday’s elections, critics have argued that the administration has sought to undermine confidence in the outcome.
On Wednesday, another federal judge rebuffed the Justice Department’s attempt to set aside ballots from more than 20,000 California voters it said might not be citizens, denouncing the action as brazen pre-election “interference.”
Read more: Who is going to be haunted by the US midterms?
In the ruling issued yesterday, Judge Thompson said a restraining order lasting until 16 November was warranted “given the fast-approaching date of the election” and because the plaintiffs “have demonstrated that they will likely succeed on the merits of their claims.”
She said the “intimidation” and threats of criminal prosecution directed at election workers were “contrary to law” and “arbitrary and capricious.”
In a sweeping set of restrictions, the judge ordered that the defendants may not demand that specific registered voters be removed from voter lists, may not refuse to issue ballots to specific voters, and may not insist that ballots go uncounted based on claims that a voter is ineligible.
For months, Mr Trump – who has never acknowledged his own election defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 – has insisted that fraud will mar this year’s midterms.
Research has repeatedly found that while isolated cases of voter fraud occur, they are rare, minuscule in scale, and do not affect US election results.
