Federal judge orders Trump administration to pause noncitizen voting investigations in Nevada and eight other states

What the judge ordered

A federal judge in California has ordered the Trump administration to stop investigating whether noncitizens are registered to vote in nine states, including Nevada. The Las Vegas Sun reported the ruling in an Associated Press story. U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, who sits in Oakland, issued the ruling Wednesday.

The judge said the investigations should stop until polls close on Election Day, Nov. 3. She put her own order on hold until Friday so the administration has time to appeal. Besides Nevada, the ruling covers California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.

Why the judge ruled against the investigation

Concerns about the data

Martinez-Olguin found that the government's effort relies on data full of errors, according to the AP. Court filings show investigators were told to target naturalized citizens and check whether they had voted before becoming citizens. The lists they used came from state and local governments and publicly available information, and the judge called them "voluminous and unreliable."

In her ruling, she wrote that no federal database contains the citizenship status of U.S. residents, so errors are highly likely even under the best conditions. Some states refused to share their voter records. For those states, she noted, the administration was trying to get the records through what she called "unreliable commercial versions of voter roll data."

A 12-minute review window

The judge described a "surge" phase of the investigation that began in late August. During that phase, agents were ordered to finish reviewing each flagged person in no more than 12 minutes to decide whether that person was legally qualified to vote. She wrote that those time limits made the risk of error worse.

Effects on voters and volunteers

The plaintiffs said some U.S. citizens believed they had been wrongly identified and investigated. Martinez-Olguin said those fears "are well understood as intimidation." She found the probe has discouraged people from attending campaign events and from working as poll monitors during the election.

Who sued and how the government responded

The lawsuit was filed by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, along with the Voto Latino Foundation, San Francisco and Santa Clara County. Beau Tremitiere, a lawyer for the unions and the voter group, said in a statement that the ruling affirms their position. "It was clear from the start that DHS built its lists on bad data," he said.

The Department of Homeland Security responded in an email statement Thursday. The agency said it is focused on removing noncitizens who vote and added, "We have no plans to question or investigate people we believe to be U.S. citizens."

The broader fight over voter rolls

The AP reported that the administration has been searching for noncitizen voters across the country in the months before the midterm elections. The administration has described the issue as a major problem. The AP noted that it is in fact quite rare, as even the government's own investigations have shown.

The Department of Justice has also been demanding detailed, unredacted voter roll data from the states. According to the AP, it has sued the 30 states that refused to hand the data over and has lost each of those cases so far.

Details of the effort, known as the "Unlawful Voter Initiative," became public last month. They came out after two Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Alex Padilla of California, released a whistleblower report. For more on voting in Nevada this year, see our election coverage.

What to watch next

• Whether the Trump administration appeals before the hold on the ruling expires Friday.
• Whether the order takes effect and stays in place until polls close on Election Day, Nov. 3.
• How the Justice Department's lawsuits against the 30 states that refused to share voter roll data turn out, after it has lost each case so far.