Emergency hearing

Judge to hold emergency hearing on Trump administration's alleged noncitizens voter lists

By Katelyn Polantz

A federal judge in Washington, DC, will hold an emergency hearing on Saturday about whether the courts should block the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security from attempting to flesh out lists of possible noncitizens on some states voter rolls.

The emergency hearing, set by Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday, comes as the Justice Department has lodged complaints with Washington state and California about how they are managing their voter rolls. In California, the DOJ is suing to try to set aside 20,000 ballots so those voters can be vetted for their citizenship, but a judge there has refused, saying it would disenfranchise voters.

The lawsuit in Washington, DC, before Chutkan builds on those arguments, saying the federal government’s compilation of lists this year of possible noncitizens on state voting rolls are unreliable, and creates an “illegal policy trying to dictate who gets to vote.”

“Defendants’ Voter Data Transmission Policy is a flagrant power grab that will, unless enjoined, upend the states’ authority to run elections and disenfranchise untold numbers of eligible voters across the country,” lawyers for the League of Women Voters and other groups wrote to the judge yesterday.

Chutkan is most known for being the presiding judge two years ago on the criminal indictment against President Donald Trump when he was accused of inciting the Capitol riot in 2021 as an attempt to overturn the presidential election results and stay in office. The case was dismissed by the Justice Department after Trump won the presidency again in 2024.