WASHINGTON, Nov 3 — In the hours before polls opened for the United States (US) midterm elections on Tuesday, federal judges issued a series of rulings restricting the Trump administration's unprecedented efforts to pressure state election officials over alleged noncitizen voting.
Over the past several months, as President Donald Trump's fellow Republicans geared up to defend their majorities in both houses of Congress, the administration ramped up a crackdown on noncitizen voting, which his allies say is a major problem even though evidence suggests it is exceedingly rare.
That push has repeatedly encountered resistance in the courts. Federal judges have found that the Trump administration overstepped its authority by wading into election administration, a responsibility the US Constitution assigns to the states, and that the lists it generated of alleged noncitizens registered to vote were inaccurate and risked disenfranchising naturalised US citizens.
The administration's legal losing streak continued on Monday. In Washington, one federal judge blocked the administration from demanding officials in California not count any ballots received from people on a list of alleged noncitizens, while another judge prevented the administration from sending such lists to officials in any state.
Those rulings came after the US Supreme Court swiftly rejected the administration's request to intervene in a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to order California election officials not to count any mail ballots received from more than 20,000 people it says may be noncitizens.
"The Supreme Court joined federal courts across the country in reaffirming state sovereignty. Every time the administration's claims regarding noncitizen voters have been subjected to any sort of scrutiny, they have immediately fallen apart," said the Centre for Election Innovation and Research's executive director David Becker, whose nonpartisan group advises election officials.
US Justice Department spokesman Kiersten Pels said the department was disappointed by the Supreme Court decision.
“But this is not the end of our efforts. We are deploying election monitors in California and across the country to observe compliance with federal law, charging election fraudsters daily, and will pursue other legal avenues to ensure that only eligible American citizens vote," she said.
To be sure, not every court decision has gone against the administration.
On Tuesday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 6-5 vote that split along ideological lines, lifted a lower court order for the administration to stop threatening election officials with prosecution if they did not comply with its demands over alleged noncitizen voters.
Pels added that the department was pleased with the decision, which she said: "recognised our important and lawful efforts to protect the integrity of our elections."
Late Monday, a federal judge in Washington denied a request by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People to prevent the Justice Department from deploying federal law enforcement personnel as poll monitors. The judge cited the department's assurances that any monitors from federal law enforcement agencies would be unarmed and dress in business-casual clothing.
Pels said any suggestion that federal law enforcement would be at the polls was "fearmongering."
In one major pending case, the Justice Department has asked an appeals court to revive its lawsuit seeking to prevent certification of the Senate race in Alaska if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses by a slim margin. It argues that voters could be confused because another candidate on the ballot shares the senator's name.
Trump, who falsely asserts that his loss in the 2020 election was due to fraud, has long argued that state election officials are not doing enough to prevent voter fraud. His allies filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging his loss in 2020, all of which were unsuccessful.
