Photo: G. Edward Johnson (archive photo)
A federal judge in Washington on Monday blocked the Trump administration from demanding that California election officials separate ballots based on federal lists of suspected noncitizens, issuing a preliminary injunction one day before the midterm elections.
Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg said the administration could not impose new ballot-counting procedures through threats of criminal prosecution against state election officials. The ruling concerns the administration’s demands, not a finding that every person on its lists is eligible or ineligible to vote.
In his November 2 memorandum opinion, Boasberg said he would order the federal defendants not to issue demands seeking to compel ballot segregation or other departures from existing state election procedures because a voter’s name appears on a suspected-noncitizen list.
Court limits federal demands
The case was brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and Pedro Trujillo against the Department of Homeland Security and other federal defendants in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Boasberg concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the executive branch lacked authority to force the procedural changes. His opinion described the risk of ballot segregation and the pressure on election officials as grounds for immediate relief.
The court declined to adopt the plaintiffs’ broader request to bar the government from generally imposing itself on election administration, calling that proposed language vague. Instead, it set out a narrower restraint tied to the lists and demands at issue.
Errors in the lists are central to the dispute
The opinion discussed evidence that citizen members of the immigrant-rights organization were wrongly identified as noncitizens, alongside declarations about fear among recently naturalized voters.
That evidence matters because a federal list of suspected noncitizens is not a verified count of ineligible voters or unlawful ballots. The court’s preliminary ruling addressed the risk to voters and the government’s claimed authority; it did not decide the status of every person whose name appeared in the data.
The opinion also distinguished enforcement of the federal prohibition on noncitizen voting from a power to dictate state ballot-processing procedures. It did not erase the prohibition on unlawful voting or announce immunity from prosecution.
Separate from the Supreme Court application
The ruling is distinct from the Justice Department’s request for Supreme Court intervention in a separate California case. JBizNews reported earlier Monday that Solicitor General D. John Sauer had asked the justices to require California to separate challenged mail ballots after lower courts refused emergency relief.
That earlier report concerned an application to the Supreme Court, not a decision granting it. Monday’s Washington ruling is Boasberg’s district-court action in the case brought by the immigrant-rights plaintiffs, not a Supreme Court ruling.
Preliminary relief ahead of the election
Boasberg granted the emergency application in part and denied it in part. He said an order reinforcing existing state procedures served the public interest in the regular administration of an election already underway.
The preliminary injunction does not finally resolve every claim in the lawsuit. Its immediate effect is to restrain the specified federal demands while the case proceeds, rather than rewrite California’s voting rules or determine individual criminal allegations.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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