A federal judge in the United States issued this Friday a far-reaching order that prevents the Government of President Donald Trump from "threatening" or "intimidating" those responsible for organizing the elections, in the midst of the deployment of pressure tactics in the weeks leading up to the midterm elections on next November 3.
"Although the defendants claim that their actions are designed to stop illegal voting by non-citizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and depriving lawful voters of the right to vote," district judge Trina Thompson noted in her ruling when approving a temporary restraining order, according to the US network CNN.
As long as this provisional order remains in force, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are prohibited from requiring election officials in any state to "separate ballots, remove voters from the electoral rolls or stop processing them."
Likewise, the magistrate bars the "threats of criminal prosecution against election officials by those agencies" and stresses that the Trump Administration will not be able to adopt other measures that "threaten, intimidate or coerce" those in charge of managing the elections to force changes in ballot processing procedures.
The order also obliges the Executive to inform Thompson of any "request for a search warrant, grand jury subpoena or other demand to access electoral materials or voting ballots" that is issued in relation to the lists drawn up by the Administration itself to argue that certain people do not have the right to vote.
The case has been driven by a coalition of unions and civil rights organizations, among them the League of United Latin American Citizens, which maintain that the Government's action violates the Voting Rights Act and constitutes an "unconstitutional interference in state control over election administration".
The conflict originates in the "controversial" data-matching operation launched by the Department of Homeland Security, which cross-checks states’ voter rolls with federal databases. Various election officials consider that the lists of alleged non-citizens generated by this Department are unreliable. The Administration defends that the objective is to prevent non-citizens from participating at the polls and has warned that it will prosecute election officials for "not doing enough to prevent illegal voting".
In this vein, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has concluded that the Government lacks authority to interfere in the way states verify the citizenship status of their voters.