Judge imposes sweeping emergency order halting DOJ pressure campaign on election officials across the country

A federal judge in California has temporarily barred the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security from leaning on election officials nationwide over alleged ineligible voters. Judge Trina Thompson, a Biden appointee, issued the restraining order Friday evening, finding that the administration's stated aim of stopping noncitizen voting would likely interfere with running elections and strip lawful voters of their ballots. It lapses November 16, according to CNN.

While it stands, the agencies may not tell any state to set aside ballots, remove people from voter rolls, or stop processing ballots. They are also barred from threatening officials with prosecution or otherwise coercing them. Thompson rejected the administration's long-running position that workers who handle ballots under the law commit a federal crime if a ballot turns out to belong to someone the government calls ineligible. She also ordered the government to tell her about any warrants, grand jury subpoenas or similar demands for election materials tied to its lists of supposedly ineligible people.

Unions and civil rights organizations, among them the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens, sued, arguing violations of the Voting Rights Act and intrusion on state authority.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CNN’s reporting. Read the full story at CNN →