Judge Orders Trump Administration to Stop Threatening Election Officials. Catch Illegal Voters With Evidence, Not Fear.
Days before the Nov. 3 election, a federal judge in California blocked the Justice Department and DHS from threatening election officials with prosecution over ballots of alleged noncitizens.
The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.
A federal judge in California late Friday ordered the Trump administration to stop threatening election officials with criminal prosecution and to stop demanding that they set aside ballots of voters the government claims are noncitizens, CBS News reported. The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson runs through Nov. 16, nearly two weeks after Tuesday's election, NBC News reported.
This is a new development in the administration's push over alleged noncitizen voting, which Dock Line has covered in earlier stories, including Judge Denies DOJ Bid to Set Aside 20,000 California Ballots. Friday's order reaches further than the California ballot fight.
What the order does
While the order is in place, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security cannot demand that election officials in any state segregate ballots, purge voters from voter rolls or halt ballot processing, CNN reported. Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, also blocked threats of criminal prosecution against election officials from those agencies.
The eight-page order prohibits any action that may "threaten, intimidate or coerce state or local elections officials or workers to demand that they halt processing the ballots of any registered voter solely on the basis that the ballot belongs to an individual alleged by [the administration] to be ineligible to vote," according to NBC News.
The judge also ordered the Justice Department to tell the court about any pending search warrant applications or subpoenas, and she set the next hearing for Nov. 13, CBS News reported. She found federal officials likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965's prohibition on "attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce" people who help others vote, and said the government was acting outside its legal or constitutional authority.
"Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters," Thompson wrote, as quoted by CNN. She added that when election workers count ballots in accordance with the law, "they do not violate federal criminal law even if a particular ballot belongs to a registered voter alleged by Defendants to be ineligible to vote."
How it got here
Labor unions and other groups filed the lawsuit a day before the ruling, CBS News reported. The coalition includes the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the case was brought in the Northern District of California, a court CNN described as "known to lean left."
The Justice Department sent letters to election officials in 57 of California's 58 counties last week directing them to cooperate with its investigations of illegal voting, NBC News reported. A letter to San Bernardino County from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bilal Essayli attached a list of "1133 likely aliens" and warned that "The legal consequences for either facilitating or ignoring federal crimes are significant."
The department has pressed California officials to separate out mail ballots for roughly 20,000 people it alleges are not citizens and has issued grand jury subpoenas to officials in Los Angeles County, according to CBS News. Courts have so far refused to order those ballots set aside, including a federal appeals court on Friday. CBS and CNN both said they had reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
Opinion: Catch illegal voters with evidence, not by frightening the clerks
Noncitizen voting is a crime, and an administration that wants to stop it has a real duty to do so. Every illegal vote cancels out a lawful one. Conservatives are right to care about it, and they should keep caring after Tuesday.
But the way you fight a wrong matters. Scripture says, "That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." Justice is not only the goal. It is the road.
According to NBC News, the road the administration chose was to send county clerks a list of "1133 likely aliens," give them 48 hours, and remind them that the "legal consequences" are significant. A county clerk is not the suspect. She is a public servant running an election under state law. If federal agents have proof that a particular person voted illegally, they should charge that person, put the evidence before a judge and let a jury decide. That is how a free country deals with a crime.
In fairness to the administration, this is a temporary order from a Biden appointee in a court that CNN itself says leans left, and the government will have its say at the Nov. 13 hearing. An appeal is possible. But as NBC News reported, several judges, not one, have now looked at this effort and turned it down, including an appeals court on Friday.
The lesson for conservatives is simple. If the evidence is strong, bring it into court and win. If it is not, stop threatening the people who count our votes. Our side should be the one that keeps its word and follows the rules, especially three days before an election.
