A temporary restraining order issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson sets limits on how the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security may respond to claims that registered voters are ineligible. The agencies may not direct election officials to remove voters from the rolls, withhold ballots or set ballots aside on that basis. They also may not threaten prosecution over officials’ handling of ballots under election law, the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN reported.
The administration must notify state and local officials who received prosecution warnings about the order. It must also inform Thompson of related search warrant applications, grand jury subpoenas or other requests for election materials. The order is set to expire Nov. 16, according to the Chronicle.
In issuing the temporary order, Thompson concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to show the administration’s actions violated the Voting Rights Act and exceeded federal authority under the Constitution, the Chronicle reported. Axios reported that the judge found election employees had been put at risk of prosecution for carrying out their work.
Other court decisions constrain election-related actions
The order came as the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals again rejected the administration’s request to block about 20,000 California ballots from voters it alleges are noncitizens. The Los Angeles Times reported that the panel said election administration authority rests with California and Congress, rather than the federal executive branch. The same panel had denied the request earlier in the week, following a separate rejection by a district judge.
In a separate case, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín barred DHS officers in nine states from field operations targeting people they know or reasonably suspect are U.S. citizens; the Ninth Circuit kept those restrictions in place through Election Day. NPR reported that Martínez-Olguín found the government’s use of incomplete, unreliable data and publicized arrests could discourage people from helping others exercise their voting rights. The appeals court also questioned the timing of the government’s actions, NPR reported.
Federal records demands and voter data disputes
The order comes amid federal requests for election records and voter data. The Justice Department sent letters to 29 states and Washington, D.C., seeking preservation of 2024 election records and voter data while warning of investigations, CNN reported. The department also sent letters to election officials in 57 of California’s 58 counties, according to CNN.
The Justice Department has said its election-related actions are intended to enforce federal laws against noncitizen voting. But noncitizen voting in federal elections is rare, according to research cited by NPR, and election officials have questioned the accuracy of federal lists. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said a list used by federal prosecutors included U.S. citizens and was unreliable after officials were asked to set aside ballots from more than 400 voters, Axios reported.
California’s registration and voter-list practices
According to the California Secretary of State, people applying to register must check a box on the registration affidavit indicating they are U.S. citizens. County election officials also use the state’s VoteCal system for routine list maintenance, including checking for duplicate registrations and updating records when voters move. These practices describe registration and routine record maintenance; they do not, by themselves, specify safeguards for canceling a registration based on a citizenship claim.
Federal investigators have also sought records from California election offices. The Justice Department issued grand jury subpoenas to local officials in the state as part of a criminal investigation into voter rolls, ABC News reported. Separately, Axios reported that the department had filed dozens of lawsuits seeking sensitive voter records since May 2025.
