Four days before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop threatening state and local election officials with criminal prosecution for counting ballots cast by registered voters.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, who is based in California, issued the eight-page emergency order late Friday night, according to NBC News and Axios. The temporary restraining order runs through Nov. 16, nearly two weeks after Election Day.
What the order blocks
The order prohibits any action that may “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 [the administration] to be ineligible to vote.”
According to Axios, the order also bars demands that states remove registered voters, withhold their ballots or stop counting votes solely because the administration claims those voters are ineligible. It bars threats of criminal prosecution against election workers who refuse such demands or who process ballots in line with election laws, and it orders prosecutors to disclose pending search warrant applications, grand jury subpoenas and other demands tied to the administration’s lists of allegedly ineligible voters.
The judge’s words
“In the lead-up to the election, high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election,” 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,” she added.
Axios reported that Thompson found the Justice and Homeland Security departments likely violated the Voting Rights Act’s ban on voter intimidation and exceeded their constitutional authority over elections.
The letters behind the case
The ruling follows a push by the administration to get states such as California and Washington to set aside ballots it says may have been cast by noncitizens. NBC News reported that the Justice Department sent letters last week to election officials in 57 of California’s 58 counties, telling them to cooperate with its investigations of illegal voting or face investigations themselves.
One Oct. 22 letter to an official in San Bernardino County, signed by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli, attached a list of what it called “1133 likely aliens” registered to vote in the county. It asked officials to commit within 48 hours to working with DOJ and DHS, to hand over nonpublic registration information such as Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers, and to “segregate—not cancel” the vote-by-mail ballots of people whose citizenship couldn’t be confirmed. “The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring federal crimes are significant,” the letter warned.
A string of courtroom losses
The order is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for the administration’s election efforts. A federal appeals court on Friday rejected its request to force California officials to segregate ballots it says came from noncitizens, after a separate appeals ruling Monday denied a bid to block more than 20,000 California ballots from being counted. A similar case in Washington state is still pending.
Also on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals left in place limits on DHS election-related field operations involving known or suspected U.S. citizens in nine states through Election Day, Axios reported.
The administration’s position
The Justice Department has defended its actions as necessary to enforce the federal ban on noncitizen voting. A spokesperson previously told Axios the government would not wait for a “more convenient time” to enforce election laws. Noncitizen voting in federal elections is already illegal, and research has found it to be rare.
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Under Thompson’s order, the protections for election workers stay in place until Nov. 16, covering the period when ballots are counted and results are certified.