Politics
Georgia among states covered by judge’s order pausing federal voter probe
A federal judge says the Trump administration must stop investigating suspected noncitizen voter registrations in nine states, including Georgia, until polls close Nov. 3. The order was temporarily put on hold to give the administration time to appeal.
A federal judge in Oakland has ordered the Trump administration to halt investigations into suspected noncitizen voter registrations in nine states, including Georgia, saying the effort relies on unreliable data and has discouraged people from helping voters ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin issued the ruling Wednesday. She directed that the investigations stop until Election Day polls close, but put the order on hold until Friday to allow the administration an opportunity to appeal.
The order covers California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The case was brought by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County.
Martinez-Olguin found that the investigation’s voter lists were “voluminous and unreliable.” Government filings described efforts to review naturalized citizens to determine whether they had voted before becoming U.S. citizens. The lists drew on state and local records as well as publicly available and commercial data.
The judge wrote that there is no federal database of U.S. residents’ citizenship status, creating a significant risk of mistakes. That risk was heightened during a late-August “surge” phase, when agents were instructed to spend no more than 12 minutes assessing each flagged person, she said.
The plaintiffs argued the probe was harming voter-assistance and mobilization work. They said some citizens feared they had been wrongly flagged, and the judge found those concerns had deterred people from attending campaign events and serving as poll monitors. She did not conclude that union members’ voting rights had been violated, noting that most vote by mail.
The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday it was focused on “removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens,” and said it had no plans to question or investigate people it believes are U.S. citizens.
The administration’s broader effort to identify noncitizen voters has drawn scrutiny as federal officials seek voter information from states. Martinez-Olguin noted that the government had tried to use commercial voter-roll data in states that declined to provide their records. The lawsuit’s attorney, Beau Tremitiere, said the ruling supported the plaintiffs’ contention that officials relied on flawed data and sent agents to people’s homes shortly before the election.
The investigation, called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, became public last month after Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Alex Padilla of California released a whistleblower report about it.