Politics
Judge orders pause in federal voter investigations across nine states
A California federal judge ordered the Trump administration to suspend investigations into suspected noncitizen voter registration in nine states through Election Day, citing unreliable data and harm to voter-assistance efforts. The order is temporarily on hold to allow the administration to appeal.
A federal judge in Oakland has ordered the Trump administration to pause investigations into whether noncitizens are registered to vote in nine states, finding that the effort relies on error-prone data and has discouraged people from helping voters ahead of the midterm election.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued the ruling Wednesday. It covers investigations in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin, and would remain in effect until polls close Nov. 3. The judge put the order on hold 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. The judge said the groups showed that the investigations were harming voter-assistance and mobilization work. She did not find that members’ voting rights were being infringed, noting that most vote by mail.
Court filings said investigators were directed to examine naturalized citizens to determine whether they had voted before becoming U.S. citizens. The lists came from government records and publicly available information. Martínez-Olguín described the data as “voluminous and unreliable,” and wrote that the absence of a federal database showing residents’ citizenship status creates a high risk of mistakes. A rapid-review phase beginning in late August allowed investigators no more than 12 minutes to assess each flagged person, according to the filings.
The plaintiffs said some citizens believed they had been wrongly identified and investigated. The judge wrote that those concerns were “well understood as intimidation” and had deterred people from attending campaign events or serving as poll monitors. She also said investigations need not target citizens, involve armed agents or intimidate people encouraging others to vote.
The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it is focused on “removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens,” and added that it has no plans to question or investigate people it believes are U.S. citizens.
The investigation, called the Unlawful Voter Initiative, became public last month after Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Alex Padilla released a whistleblower report. The administration has also sought detailed, unredacted voter rolls from states and sued 30 states that declined to provide them; the judge noted that, in states that withheld records, investigators were seeking voter information from commercial data sources she considered unreliable.
Beau Tremitiere, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said the ruling affirmed their concerns that investigators used flawed lists and sent agents to people’s homes shortly before an election.