Read together, the two rulings place the federal executive on the defensive over how far it may reach into the machinery of voting.
A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order directing the Trump administration to stop threatening election officials, according to a report carried by RT. The order, which the report attributes to a judge named Thompson, expires on 16 November, almost two weeks after election day on Tuesday. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed only a day earlier by labour unions and other groups, who blamed the administration for interfering in the running of the midterms.
The Justice Department did not accept the decision. Later on Saturday it challenged the order at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California. A DOJ spokesperson said the judge had "issued an order against the federal government without even waiting to hear from the US, while in other cases the Department's own urgent election claims are delayed by judges until after Election Day." The remark frames the dispute as one of timing as much as substance: the department presents itself as seeking swift rulings on election matters while complaining that it has been denied a hearing on this one.
The order follows a separate setback for the administration on Friday, when it lost an appeal against an earlier decision by another federal judge. That judge had refused a DOJ request for California to block more than 20,000 ballots cast by alleged non-citizens, holding that the request violated longstanding constitutional principles mandating that states control their own elections. Read together, the two rulings place the federal executive on the defensive over how far it may reach into the machinery of voting.
The political backdrop is closely balanced. An NBC News average of national polls published on Sunday suggested that 52 per cent of Americans preferred a Democrat-controlled Congress, with 44 per cent favouring a Republican one. In a contest that close, disputes over which ballots count and how officials are treated acquire unusual weight. The restraining order is temporary and narrow in scope, and its expiry date sits awkwardly against the certification calendar that follows election day.
Several things are not yet known. The report does not specify which officials were said to have been threatened, what conduct the order prohibits in detail, or how the 9th Circuit will treat the government's challenge. It gives no indication whether the order will be extended beyond 16 November, and it does not say how many ballots or states beyond California are affected. Nor does it establish that any threat was carried out; the order restrains conduct, and the underlying claims remain to be tested. What the record does show is a rapid sequence of legal moves in the final days of a campaign, with courts now positioned between the executive and the officials who administer the vote.
