Another judge blocks Trump’s attempt to hold disputed ballots, saying they include legitimate voters

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Monday, November 2, 2026

A federal court in Washington said Monday that the lists of 20,000 suspected noncitizens the Trump administration crafted from California’s registration data is “flawed,” and include dozens — and perhaps thousands — of legitimate citizen voters.

Judge James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, said the lists are so bad that the Justice Department cannot prod local election officials to use them as a basis for trying to sequester those ballots.

“The lists are flawed,” the judge wrote in issuing a temporary restraining order.

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He joins several other courts that have reached the same conclusion — though in his case, he asked for specific data to determine what sorts of names appear on the lists.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, based in Los Angeles, ran its own list of members against DOJ’s list of 20,000 names and found at least 22 of its people who are in fact citizens were exact matches, meaning their names appeared on the government’s list as suspected noncitizens.

Another 66 CHIRLA citizen members were “near certain full matches.” And using just names and some other identifier, such as birth year or zip code, more than 6,000 CHIRLA members who are citizens may appear on DOJ’s list, the judge said, citing CHIRLA’s analysis.

“Defendants’ flawed lists risk chilling or preventing lawful votes from being cast and counted,” Judge Boasberg said.

The ruling is the latest in a total wipeout for President Trump in his effort to challenge state voter lists. The DOJ lost more than two dozen cases trying to pry full voter lists from states that resisted turning them over.

And it has now seen several courts rebuff its attempt to segregate the 20,000 ballots in California, another court order it to halt “intimidation” threats to prosecute election officials who accept the ballots, and still another court rule that investigators must cease pursuing cases over past election fraud until after Tuesday’s election, over concerns of intimidating legitimate voters.