Federal Judge Bars Justice Department From Threatening Election Workers
Seven Lights
A federal judge in California late Friday barred the Justice Department from threatening election workers with criminal prosecution and from demanding that local officials separate or refuse to count ballots the government believes may have been cast by ineligible voters. The order, issued three days before the midterm elections, requires the department to inform the court of any pending search warrant applications or subpoenas aimed at election administration.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson granted the temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed Thursday by labor unions and other groups that accused the Trump administration of intimidating California election workers. She found federal officials had likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits attempts to intimidate, threaten or coerce persons who assist others in voting. The order runs to November 16, and a hearing on a longer-term injunction is set for November 13.
“One of the hallmarks of a fair election is the freedom to exercise the right to vote free from threat, fear, or intimidation,” Judge Thompson wrote. “Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters.”
The department had pressed California officials this month to set aside mail ballots for roughly 20,000 people it alleges are not United States citizens, and a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas seeking internal communications from Los Angeles County election officials. The head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, sent letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia in July warning of possible criminal prosecution of local election officials. The United States attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has warned that any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is “opening themselves to legal jeopardy.”
California officials say the list of suspected noncitizens is unreliable and probably includes many lawful citizens. Elections officials have testified that processed votes cannot be matched back to the voters who submitted them, making segregation impractical. Millions of Californians have already voted, and hundreds of thousands of ballots have been processed.
The ruling followed a separate setback the same day, when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined 2-1 to revive the department’s request to compel California to set aside the disputed ballots. A district court had rejected that request Wednesday, finding it violated constitutional principles reserving election administration to the states. The department said in a statement that federal law prohibits noncitizen voting and that “enforcing that law is not an agenda item. It is the Department’s job.”