Politics
Judge pauses federal voter probes across nine states, including Nevada
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop investigating suspected noncitizen voter registrations in nine states through Election Day, citing unreliable data and concerns that the effort was intimidating eligible voters. The ruling is temporarily on hold while the administration considers an appeal.
A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to halt investigations into suspected noncitizen voter registrations in Nevada and eight other states until polls close Nov. 3, finding that the probe relies on unreliable data and has deterred people from participating in election-related activities.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin issued the ruling Wednesday in Oakland. It covers California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The order is temporarily paused until Friday to give the administration time to appeal.
The case was brought by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County. They challenged the Department of Homeland Security’s Unlawful Voter Initiative, which scrutinizes people flagged as potentially having registered or voted before becoming U.S. citizens.
Court filings said investigators were directed to review flagged voters using information from state and local governments and commercial and public sources. Martinez-Olguin described the records as “voluminous and unreliable,” noting that no federal database provides a comprehensive record of the citizenship status of U.S. residents. She wrote that the risk of mistakes grew during an intensified phase of the investigation, when agents were told to spend no more than 12 minutes reviewing each person.
The plaintiffs said some citizens feared they had been wrongly identified and investigated. The judge found those concerns amounted to intimidation and had discouraged people from attending campaign events and serving as poll monitors.
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 believed were U.S. citizens.
The initiative became public last month after Democratic senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Alex Padilla of California released a whistleblower report. The administration has pursued voter records from states as part of its broader effort to identify noncitizens on voter rolls. The judge noted that where states had refused to provide records, investigators sought commercial versions of voter data.
Beau Tremitiere, an attorney for the groups that sued, said the ruling confirmed their concerns that investigators were sent to people’s homes shortly before an election using lists whose accuracy had not been adequately checked.