Judge Orders Trump Administration to Stop Threatening to Prosecute Election Officials Days Before the Midterms

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who do not comply with the Trump administration's demands related to voting by alleged non-citizens, Reuters reported — a temporary restraining order issued four days before a midterm election that will decide control of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson ruled in a lawsuit brought by election workers' unions and other groups that the department had gone too far this month when it threatened to prosecute state and county officials who do not cooperate with the administration's election-related initiatives. "Because 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, and the official day of the Elections is only a couple of days away, the balance of the equities and public interest weigh in Plaintiffs' favor," Thompson wrote.

The order goes further than the threats themselves. Thompson, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, barred the administration from demanding that local election officials remove voters from statewide rolls, refuse ballots to specific voters, or segregate ballots cast in the midterm elections, based on a Trump administration list of alleged non-citizen voters. The Justice Department had no immediate comment on the ruling.

The decision lands in the final stretch of a campaign in which the administration has taken an aggressive approach to election oversight — pressing states for voter-registration data and saying stricter measures are needed to ensure election security and public confidence in the vote. Critics, including political experts and Democratic and some Republican election officials, have called the moves federal overreach, and election officials have told Reuters they were preparing for potential federal interference in the midterms. Republicans currently hold narrow majorities in both the House and the Senate; polls favor Democrats to take control of the House and give them a plausible chance of a Senate majority.