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Judge orders Trump administration to cease threats to prosecute election officials · GNN Daily Breaking News

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  Speaker 1: A federal judge in San Francisco issued an emergency court
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  Speaker 1: order directing the Department of Justice to immediately stop threatening
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  Speaker 1: state and local election officials with criminal prosecution. Issued late
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  Speaker 1: Friday by U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, the preliminary injunction
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  Speaker 1: bars federal prosecutors from coercing election workers into altering voter
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  Speaker 1: registration dockets or isolating ballots in the final 48 hours
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  Speaker 1: before the November 3rd midterm elections. The judicial order forces
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  Speaker 1: a sharp halt to the administration's aggressive legal strategy targeting
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  Speaker 1: local election administrators nationwide. The federal lawsuit was brought by
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  Speaker 1: a coalition of labor unions and civil rights organizations, including
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  Speaker 1: the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, the American Federation of State, County,
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  Speaker 1: and Municipal Employees, AFSEM, and Protect Democracy. Plaintiffs argued that
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  Speaker 1: recent Justice Department warning letters sent to state officials contained
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  Speaker 1: explicit threats of federal criminal charges meant to intimidate local
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  Speaker 1: election workers. Under Judge Thompson's order, the Department of Justice
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  Speaker 1: must formally notify affected state and local administrators that all
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  Speaker 1: prior threats of prosecution have been enjoined by federal court order.
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  Speaker 1: The ruling explicitly forbids the Justice Department from demanding that
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  Speaker 1: election officials remove individuals from voter rolls using unverified lists
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  Speaker 1: or isolate ballots cast by voters whom federal authorities claim
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  Speaker 1: are non-citizens. Judge Thompson wrote that the public holds a
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  Speaker 1: paramount interest in ensuring election personnel carry out their duties
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  Speaker 1: free from federal coercion. Noting that attempts to pressure workers
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  Speaker 1: just days before election day risk severe voter disenfranchisement, and
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  Speaker 1: administrative paralysis. Justice Department litigators defended their actions as standard
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  Speaker 1: enforcement of federal voting eligibility laws. The court order arrives
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  Speaker 1: as state election directors prepare for millions of voters to
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  Speaker 1: cast ballots across competitive congressional and state battlegrounds on Tuesday.
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  Speaker 1: Civil rights leaders praised the decision as a decisive victory
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  Speaker 1: for election infrastructure reassuring local poll workers that state voting
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  Speaker 1: procedures remain protected under federal law. As federal agencies adjust
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  Speaker 1: to the court's restrictions, local election offices are continuing standard
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  Speaker 1: ballot processing protocols across the nation.