Unions representing California election workers sued the Justice Department on Friday over its attempts to intervene in the 2026 midterm elections. The legal action follows threats and subpoenas issued to local officials. Attorneys said the case involves "unprecedented and unlawful threats by federal government officials to state and local election workers."

The complaint was filed a day after the Trump administration issued a flurry of threats and subpoenas to local officials, claiming it was part of an effort to stop voting by undocumented immigrants.

Unions representing election workers in California sued the Justice Department on Friday over its efforts to intervene in the state's administration of the midterm elections, following a flurry of Trump administration threats and subpoenas to officials a day earlier.

The lawsuit is a legal counterattack against Trump political appointees at the department who, in recent days, have intensified their campaign to stop voting by undocumented immigrants, even though studies show such instances are exceedingly rare.

The unions -- including the Service Employees International Union, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- are asking a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order to block the department from pressuring local officials to stop counting ballots and turn over election data, and to drop its threats to criminally prosecute officials who do not comply with their demands.

"This case involves unprecedented and unlawful threats by federal government officials to state and local election workers, which significantly risk interfering with the lawful administration of the ongoing 2026 midterm elections and the counting of ballots," wrote the two lead attorneys in the case Stacey Leyton and Norman Eisen.

A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The department's leaders have repeatedly said their efforts were not motivated by politics or Mr. Trump's demands, but rather a good-faith effort to ensure that every ballot cast in the midterms was lawful.

The pressure exerted by the department is the most aggressive intervention by federal law enforcement in elections in recent history. It comes at the direction of President Trump, who has spread falsehoods about undocumented immigrants voting in large numbers and has tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which he lost.

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