Yellow Jacket InitiativeBy E. Lawrence Anderson, Yellow Jacket Initiative
As of Wednesday, November 4, 2026, about 7:30 a.m. ET. Primary sources: the court's Order (ECF 30) and Memorandum Opinion (ECF 31) of Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, and the government's Status Report (ECF 32) of Tuesday, Nov. 3, in League of Women Voters v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, No. 1:26-cv-03602 (D.D.C.); and the Ninth Circuit's docket in SEIU v. DOJ, No. 26-7303. All were read from CourtListener's RECAP mirror, which can lag the courts' own systems. Every quotation below was checked against those texts. Not read: the government's opposition brief (ECF 24/25) and the Oct. 31 hearing transcript (ECF 29, restricted); the government's arguments below are taken from the court's description of them.
The government's side first. The Justice Department and DHS argued that the lists they sent to state and county election officials have "no independent legal effect," that jurisdictions are free to ignore their requests, that the plaintiffs do not identify a "final agency action" a court can review, and that because the Privacy Act gives individuals their own right to sue, it rules out these claims under the Administrative Procedure Act. The court's order is preliminary relief, not a final ruling. It does not require the government to retrieve or delete anything already sent, and it expressly leaves two things alone: DHS may still answer citizenship verification queries through the SAVE system, and the Justice Department may still prosecute violations of federal law.
What the court ordered. On Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the motion brought by two of the plaintiffs, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The operative paragraph of the order (ECF 30):
"Defendants and their agents are preliminarily ENJOINED and STAYED under 5 U.S.C. § 705 from further disclosing, transmitting, or releasing data purporting to constitute lists of individual potential or actual non-citizen voters or registered voters, to any State, county, municipal, or other local official, employee, or officer responsible for administering voter registration, issuing or processing ballots, verifying signatures, or tabulating or certifying votes."
The two carve-outs, in full: the order does not preclude the defendants from "(1) responding to an inquiry seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status of any individual through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system, or (2) prosecuting violations of federal law."
This is a different case from the League of Women Voters' challenge to the expanded SAVE system (No. 1:25-cv-03501), in which the Supreme Court granted a stay on Sept. 25.
The government says it is complying. On Tuesday, Nov. 3, the government filed the status report the order required (ECF 32). It restates the injunction and both carve-outs and says: "Defendants confirm that they are in compliance with this Order." It names three officials as responsible for continued compliance: an intergovernmental liaison at the Justice Department; a deputy assistant director in Homeland Security Investigations at ICE; and an associate director of the Immigration Records and Identity Services Directorate at USCIS. Compliance is the government's statement; nothing in the court record yet tests it.
What the opinion found. The 30-page memorandum opinion (ECF 31) finds that all four preliminary-relief factors favor the plaintiffs. On the statute, the plaintiffs are likely to show that what the court calls the Voter Data Transmission Policy "is unauthorized by any statute and is thus in excess of statutory authority and contrary to law."
On the Privacy Act, the court writes that the defendants have not "published any new or revised SORNs" (the public notices the Act requires for a system of records) covering this data, "and Defendants have identified none," and that "Defendants do not contend that a SORN has been published or otherwise applies to its data collection." It finds bulk disclosure unlikely to fit the law-enforcement exception, which requires a written request from the head of the requesting agency: "Defendants have not identified any such request." The court also notes that the defendants "do not meaningfully respond to the merits" of the substantive Privacy Act claims, and that they conceded at the hearing that courts in the district have rejected their adequate-remedy argument.
On final agency action, the court relies in part on a document a Justice Department official posted on X describing a "multi-agency, multi-step verification process" that ends with a "final list delivered to state & county." The government, as the court describes its argument, treated the document as merely press material.
On timing, the court concludes that the Purcell principle, which cautions federal courts against changing election rules close to an election, "counsels for retaining the states' status quo and enjoining further voter data transmissions."
Background the court recites from other records. The opinion describes the Justice Department's Oct. 13 delivery to Los Angeles County of a list of more than 20,000 people, of whom, it notes, "only 7,035 'had addresses in Los Angeles County,'" and an Oct. 26 letter to Washington saying the Department "anticipate[s] imminently receiving a second list." The plaintiffs' further allegations, including that the defendants have acquired voter lists from at least 47 states, are allegations, not findings.
Where it stands. No notice of appeal or stay motion appears on the CourtListener docket as of Wednesday morning, Nov. 4; the latest entry is the Nov. 3 status report.
Three rulings, Nov. 2-3. Each bars something different:
- League of Women Voters v. DHS (D.D.C., Chutkan, J., Nov. 2): bars further transmission of the lists to election officials, in any state. SAVE queries and prosecutions are carved out.
- CHIRLA v. DHS (D.D.C., Boasberg, C.J., Nov. 2): the defendants "are preliminarily ENJOINED from issuing demands to California elections officials to compel the segregation of ballots, or other deviations from existing state elections procedures, based on voters' inclusion on the lists of suspected non-citizens."
- SEIU v. DOJ (Ninth Circuit, No. 26-7303, Nov. 2-3): stays a district-court restraining order that had barred DOJ and DHS from demanding, on the basis of the lists alone, that officials segregate or not count ballots, and from threatening election officials and workers with prosecution. A three-judge panel granted the stay on Nov. 2; the court vacated that order that night to rehear the matter en banc; an en banc panel reinstated it on Nov. 3; and that evening the full court denied further rehearing. The stay stands.
We state what each order says. We do not draw conclusions about how they interact.
Earlier: Voter groups ask a court to stop DHS from using state voter files. Here is what the complaint says. (Oct. 23).
Sources: League of Women Voters v. DHS, No. 1:26-cv-03602 (D.D.C.): Order (ECF 30), Memorandum Opinion (ECF 31), Status Report (ECF 32), docket; CHIRLA v. DHS, No. 1:26-cv-03072 (D.D.C.): Order (ECF 47); SEIU v. DOJ, No. 26-7303 (9th Cir.): docket (Dkts. 24, 31, 32, 39).
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