A federal judge said the Trump administration has engaged in a “campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” election officials ahead of the midterms.
\n\nA federal judge in Washington warned this afternoon that the Trump administration’s efforts to intervene in elections could have a “chilling effect,” noting that letters the Justice Department has sent to local election officials have included inaccurate data.
\n\n“The government has made no secret of their determination to purge the voter rolls” of individuals they believe to be noncitizens, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said during a rare Saturday hearing. “Past efforts to do so have resulted in U.S. citizens being swept up into this law enforcement dragnet.”
\n\nChutkan said she was concerned people may not go to the polls if they’re afraid they could be wrongly accused of noncitizen voting.
\n\n“It’s an ‘if,’” Elizabeth Shapiro, an attorney for the Justice Department, shot back.
\n\n“It’s not,” Chutkan said, citing Gustavo Gutierrez Gomez, who filed a declaration in the case, brought by voting advocates over what they call the Trump administration’s “Voter Data Collection Policy.”
\n\nThe League of United Latin American Citizens, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, asked the judge to block the transmission of data…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/health