Key facts
- Chutkan barred the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security from sending states lists of voters the administration says may not be citizens.
- The order also blocks asking state election officials to separate out those voters' ballots or not count them until citizenship is proven.
- Chutkan said the administration's data may not be reliable, creating a risk that lawfully registered voters would be disenfranchised.
- The Justice Department argued in a Saturday filing that its letters enforced a federal law banning noncitizen voting and were not a reviewable policy.
- A Los Angeles federal judge earlier rejected a request to set aside mailed ballots from more than 20,000 California registered voters.
- A San Francisco federal judge on Friday ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening prosecution of noncompliant election officials.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday temporarily barred the Trump administration from moving ahead with a plan it says would prevent noncitizen voting, but that critics say risks disenfranchising eligible voters and infringing on states' authority over elections.
The order blocks the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security from sending states lists of registered voters the administration says may not be citizens, and from asking state election officials to separate out those voters' ballots or not count them until citizenship is proven. The ruling is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for President Donald Trump's efforts to assert federal control over election administration ahead of the November 3 midterms.
Noncitizen voting is illegal and all available evidence shows it is exceedingly rare. Over the past month the administration sent letters to officials in California and Washington state demanding they not count any ballots from people on lists of voters it said may not be citizens. Voting rights and privacy advocates asked Chutkan to intervene, alleging the administration was violating the Privacy Act of 1974, which restricts the federal government's ability to disclose sensitive private information.
The Justice Department said in a court filing on Saturday that its letters to California and Washington were part of an effort to enforce a federal law banning noncitizen voting and did not amount to a distinct policy subject to review by a federal court. Earlier in the week, a federal judge in Los Angeles rejected the department's request to order California to temporarily set aside mailed ballots from more than 20,000 registered voters it said were likely not citizens.
Chutkan, a Washington, DC-based appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama, said the administration's data may not be reliable, meaning there was a risk that lawfully registered voters would be disenfranchised. An appeals court rejected on Friday the department's request for an emergency order pending appeal. Also on Friday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Justice Department to stop threatening to prosecute state and local election officials who do not comply with the administration's demands over alleged noncitizen voting.