An American judge ordered yesterday, Friday, the Department of Justice to stop threatening to prosecute state and local officials who do not comply with the Trump administration’s requirements regarding the voting rights of individuals who are allegedly notU.S. citizens.
The decision comes a few days before the midterm elections to be held next week in the U.S., which will determine control of Congress, where Republicans currently hold a slim majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although many of the races that will determine the outcome are too close to call, polls indicate that the Democrats will take control of the House and have a solid chance of securing a majority in the Senate as well.
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For months leading up to the midterm elections, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken an aggressive approach to overseeing the election, for example, by pressuring states to provide voter registration data from the electoral rolls, arguing that stricter measures are needed to ensure election security and public confidence in the voting process.
However, the Department of Justice crossed the line this month, when it threatened to prosecute state and county officials who do not cooperate with the Trump administration’s election-related initiatives, District Judge Trina Thompson ruled in a lawsuit filed by election workers’ unions and several other organizations.
“Because it is of paramount importance to the public interest to ensure that election officials and employees are able to carry out their duties in accordance with federal law and the electoral processand Election Day is just a few days away, the balancing of the parties’ interests and the public interest favors the Plaintiffs,” Thompson wrote in her order granting a preliminary injunction. The Department of Justice did not immediately comment on the ruling.
Critics, including political experts as well as Democratic and some Republican elected officials, have characterized the Trump administration’s actions as a federal overreach. Some election officials told Reuters that they are preparing for a possible federal intervention in the midterm elections.
Judge Thompson, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, ordered the Trump administration not to ask local election officials to remove voters from state voter rolls, to reject ballots from specific voters, or to set aside ballots cast in the midterm elections based on a Trump administration list of voters whom theclaims are not U.S. citizens.
Trump has previously made false claims about elections, including refusing to accept his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
Source: Proto Thema
