Federal judge won’t bar Trump admin from threatening election officials in effort to purge voters

A federal judge declined to block the Trump administration Monday from threatening state election officials to induce them to segregate ballots and remove voters from the rolls over allegations they may be noncitizens.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said a coalition of Democratic groups lacked standing to seek a temporary restraining order against the administration.

“Even extraordinary merits questions cannot justify the extraordinary relief of a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order if those seeking it lack standing,” Boasberg wrote.

A different federal judge has already barred the Trump administration from threatening election officials, in response to a lawsuit filed by unions representing the officials. 

In that case, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson granted the plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order that blocks the federal government from threatening state election officials and pressuring states to set aside ballots, remove voters from the rolls or withhold their ballots.

Boasberg’s Monday order stemmed from a lawsuit filed last month by a coalition of Democratic groups, who sought to block the Trump administration from threatening state election officials with criminal prosecution if they didn’t take steps to restrict voting during the midterms.

The plaintiffs* in the case were the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association, and the Nevada State Democratic Party.

The Democratic plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration is supporting an “effort to unlawfully federalize elections” and threatening state officials if they do not comply with the administration’s demands. They cited a recent social media post by President Donald Trump, declaring that California election officials “will all go to jail for a long period of time” if they refuse to set aside potential ballots cast by some 20,000 voters that the Trump administration suspects are noncitizens. 

The lawsuit was filed days after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued California and Los Angeles County to force them to segregate the ballots. 

In letters to state and county officials, acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said election officials who “knowingly tabulate” ballots from people identified by federal agencies as noncitizens could risk becoming “aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”

In addition to California, the administration targeted Washington state, demanding it set aside ballots from over 400 people the administration claims are noncitizens illegally registered to vote.

At a hearing last week, Boasberg questioned the Democratic plaintiff’s standing to sue, and asked if they could show that there’s a concrete threat that the Trump administration would take similar action in other states as it did in California. Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to disclose all the states that it had sent demand letters relating to the midterm. 

The administration said that, over the course of four months, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent letters to election officials in California, Nevada, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the DOJ sent letters to officials in California and Washington. 

But the government’s response excluded informal or unwritten communications — and disputed whether several categories of federal outreach to election officials counted at all. 

That exclusion hindered the Democrats’ argument that the Trump administration’s actions threatened election officials. 

The Trump administration’s demands have been unsuccessful. State officials in Washington and California rejected their request to segregate ballots, and the DOJ’s attempt to sue California has failed in the courts.

Boasberg said as a result, Democrats “offer no evidence that any state election official has segregated or refused to tabulate the ballot of purported non-citizens on these lists.”

“And if attempts to alter the rules are never successful, the candidate has not actually been deprived of his concrete interest in lawful procedure,” Boasberg wrote. 

Boasberg added that “if the Court were to embrace Plaintiffs’ much more expansive conception,” of standing under Bost v. Illinois – which held that candidates have standing to challenge rules governing the counting of votes – then “candidates would have standing to challenge every Tweet, Truth Social post, or campaign speech that deploys rhetoric that undermines confidence in the election or ‘casts a pall over ballots being cast.’”

“While such rhetoric may undermine election fairness and have a lamentable effect on our democratic process, Bost does not support the notion that Plaintiffs have standing to challenge it,” Boasberg said.

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the Democratic organizations in the case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.