Judge Orders Trump Administration to Stop Threatening Election Officials Over Ballots
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop threatening state and local election officials with criminal charges over how they process ballots. Judge Trina Thompson also ruled that the Justice Department must stop demanding that those officials set aside, or refuse to process, ballots allegedly cast by non-citizens, meaning people who are not U.S. citizens. The BBC reported the ruling.
Thompson wrote that the defendants' actions are likely to interfere with election administration, the work of running an election, and to disenfranchise lawful voters, or keep eligible people from having their votes counted. The ruling comes days before the U.S. midterm elections on November 3. Those elections will determine which party controls Congress for the last two years of Donald Trump's presidency.
The dispute began with letters. The Justice Department demanded that California's secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar, the office that runs elections in the county, set aside ballots from 20,000 registered voters whom the administration believes are likely non-citizens. According to court filings, the government had asked a court for an order requiring California to set those ballots aside. The Justice Department also sent letters to every county in California on October 23, 2026, requiring them to set aside the votes of alleged non-citizens.
Armed officials from the Department of Homeland Security then delivered letters to county officials and employees across California. The letters threatened criminal charges if they did not sequester, or separate and hold apart, those ballots. A similar letter was sent to Washington state, demanding that its secretary of state stop processing ballots allegedly cast by non-citizens.
The Justice Department reportedly opened a criminal investigation into California county election officials and issued federal grand jury subpoenas, which are legal demands for records or testimony issued in a criminal inquiry. Civil rights groups and unions representing election workers filed a legal complaint accusing the department of interfering with election administration.
An earlier ruling in the case went against the government. Reuters reported on October 29 that a federal judge had said the bid to block California votes would "wreak havoc" on democracy.
Trump criticized the ruling on Saturday, writing, "Why would they reject fixing Election Fraud?" He has also offered a $1 million reward for reports of voter fraud in the U.S. that lead to a conviction.
For context, BBC Verify reported that the Heritage Foundation's database had identified 24 cases of non-citizens convicted of voting between 2005 and 2025.
