Federal judge bars DOJ from threatening election officials over ballots days before US midterms; DOJ appeals

The order also bars officials from demanding that election officials remove registered voters from the rolls, refuse to issue them ballots, or segregate or decline to count their ballots, based solely on the administration's allegations, according to another report. One report says that the order appears to apply nationwide, though the judge sits in Northern California, and another outlet's claim that it covers Homeland Security as well was not confirmed by a second source.

The case

The plaintiffs are the NAACP, the League of United Latin American Citizens and labour groups, including SEIU, the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, which represent state and local election officials. They filed suit on Thursday. The named defendants include the Justice Department, and one report names Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. The article calls the order the first to legally bar such threats, because other judges had told the department to stop threatening officials but had not issued a bar.

Earlier in October the Justice Department threatened to prosecute California election officials if they processed up to 20,000 ballots from people the federal government claimed were noncitizens. The department made similar demands of Washington state officials. Some local officials refused, and the department then sent county election offices letters warning that workers could face prosecution for processing ballots cast by people on the list. A federal appeals court separately rejected the department's request to require California to segregate those ballots, finding that doing so could disrupt the election and disenfranchise eligible voters.

On Friday the Justice Department asked a federal judge to force Alaska to preserve and segregate ballots in its US Senate race, where two candidates have nearly identical names. The same day the department sent letters to all state election chiefs directing them to preserve ballots and election records, and the letters warned that willful violations of a federal record-keeping law can carry criminal penalties.

The reports found do not report a ruling from the appeals court, a date for a hearing on a longer injunction, or a response from the Justice Department beyond its appeal. They do not give the number of counties that received letters, and they do not say whether the department will comply while it appeals.