This image, taken on June 3, 2026, shows voting ballots being inspected at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center in the City of Industry, California, following the state’s primary election. (File photo by AP)
Press TV
2026/11/02
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by labor unions and other groups, who filed a complaint against the Trump administration for interfering in the administration of the midterms.
US District Judge Trina Thompson, who is based at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California, ruled on Friday that the Trump administration was operating outside of its constitutional authority and likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits “attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce” officials facilitating the election process.
“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by non-citizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” she said.
The judge issued a temporary restraining order that expires on November 16, almost two weeks after Election Day.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed just a day earlier by labor unions and other groups, who filed a complaint against the Trump administration for interfering in the administration of the midterms.
Later on Saturday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged the California judge’s ruling.
A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement that “the judge issued an order against the federal government without even waiting to hear from the US, while in other cases the Department’s own urgent election claims are delayed by judges until after Election Day.”
On Friday, the Trump administration also lost an appeal against an earlier ruling by another federal judge, who denied the DOJ’s request for California to block more than 20,000 ballots from alleged non-citizens, noting that it “violates longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states have control over their elections.”
On Saturday, District Judge Tanya Chutkan warned that the Trump administration’s efforts to intervene in elections could have a “chilling effect.”
“The government has made no secret of their determination to purge the voter rolls” of individuals they believe to be noncitizens, Chutkan said. “Past efforts to do so have resulted in US citizens being swept up into this law enforcement dragnet.”
Chutkan said she was concerned people may not go to the polls if they’re afraid they could be wrongly accused of noncitizen voting.
The Trump administration is said to be considering taking legal action against more states in the lead-up to — or possibly after — the midterm elections as part of its effort to force states to comb through voter rolls for noncitizens trying to vote in federal elections.
NBC News average of national polls, published on Sunday, suggested that 52 percent of US voters preferred a Democrat-controlled Congress, while 44 percent are in favor of one with a Republican majority.
