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DOJ election cases hit weekend court losses as midterms near
States Newsroom partners reported Monday that federal judges blocked several last-minute Justice Department election requests, with a California ballot case at the Supreme Court.
Eight States Newsroom partners on Monday carried the same report on Justice Department lawsuits and related federal cases filed in the days before the Nov. 4 midterm elections, describing weekend losses in court and additional hearings set for Monday1.
The shared article said the department asked the U.S. Supreme Court to require California to set aside ballots of about 20,000 people federal officials called suspected noncitizens, after a district court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected that demand1.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in an emergency application that if those people voted and were not citizens, counting the ballots would violate federal law and dilute citizen votes, according to the report.
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights said in a Saturday court filing that data experts found 42 percent of names on the federal list were not on California’s current voter file, and that at least 22 names were on a list of U.S. citizens the group compiled.
Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday prohibited the department from demanding that California set aside those ballots, the article said, echoing earlier rulings now before the Supreme Court.
Late Friday, Judge Trina Thompson of the Northern District of California issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from threatening election workers nationwide with prosecution, the partners reported; the Justice Department appealed to the 9th Circuit1.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said on social media that reminding officials to follow federal law is a civic service, not a threat. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said California could resolve the voter-roll dispute by providing an unredacted list.
In Alaska, Judge Sharon Gleason on Sunday dismissed a department lawsuit that sought to pause certification of the U.S. Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan lost to Democrat Mary Peltola by less than the votes received by another candidate of the same name, Dan J. Sullivan; the department appealed.
The administration and its supporters say the cases are needed to stop noncitizen voting, the article said, while researchers cited there have found such voting rare and not outcome-changing1. Homeland Security has arrested dozens of noncitizens on election-crime allegations in recent weeks, according to the same account.
The NAACP asked a court to bar a wide range of federal law-enforcement agents from serving as election monitors as the department plans about 1,000 monitors in all 50 states; Justice Department lawyers said monitors may not carry firearms and must not interfere with voting.
President Donald Trump, at a Sunday rally in Dubuque, Iowa, criticized voting machines; the article said machines in every state except Louisiana produce paper records that can be checked. What the Supreme Court and remaining Monday orders will do was not resolved in the report1.