A federal judge in San Francisco has blocked the Department of Homeland Security from conducting election-related field operations in nine states that could sweep up U.S. citizens, in a preliminary injunction that runs until polls close on Election Day, November 3, the Georgia Recorder reported.
Source: Georgia Recorder via Cobb County Courier
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued the 19-page order on Wednesday night in California Nurses Association v. Mullin. It bars DHS from election-related field operations and interviews involving people agents "know, suspect, or should reasonably know or suspect are U.S. citizens" in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin. The judge paused the order until Friday afternoon to allow an appeal; it then took effect.
Source: The Washington Sun
Voting-rights advocates alleged that Homeland Security was sending armed agents to homes to question residents about their voter status ahead of the midterms. Martínez-Olguín found the crackdown likely violates Voting Rights Act protections against intimidating voters, writing that the evidence leads to an "objectively reasonable fear of law enforcement entanglements that intimidates citizens from urging or aiding others in exercising their right to vote," the Georgia Recorder reported.
Source: Georgia Recorder via Cobb County Courier
The judge also called DHS's target lists "voluminous and unreliable": 48.2 million records received through independent sources "of questionable provenance," and another 50.6 million records from official state voter-roll data or unreliable commercial versions of it. "Even under the best conditions, there is a high likelihood of error in review because there is no federal database containing citizenship status of U.S. residents," she wrote, according to reporting on the order.
Source: The Washington Sun
According to whistleblower reports cited in the case, DHS in late August directed hundreds of immigration agents to pause their normal duties to search for evidence of noncitizen voting. Members of the California Nurses Association, which sued DHS and Secretary Markwayne Mullin, said threats had already caused some members to withdraw from electoral activity because they feared harm to themselves and their loved ones, the judge wrote.
The ruling is a preliminary injunction, not a final decision on the merits, and the administration may still appeal. Separately, the Justice Department is suing California to force election officials not to count the ballots of some 20,000 voters the federal government says it suspects are noncitizens. Studies have shown noncitizen voting occurs rarely. DHS had not issued a public response to the ruling in the reporting reviewed.