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Days after the US Department of Justice threatened election officials in all 50 states with possible prosecution unless they preserve election records — the latest push by the Trump administration to cast doubt on the validity of the upcoming midterm elections — a federal judge on Friday ordered the DOJ to reach out to the officials again, this time to rescind the threat.

The DOJ must contact the state and local officials who received warnings this week and inform them that the “threats of prosecution to election officials and workers… have been enjoined,” said District Judge Trina Thompson in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Thompson ordered officials with the Trump administration to stop demanding that election workers remove voters from rolls, sequester ballots cast by people the White House has claimed are ineligible to vote due to being noncitizens, and refuse to issue ballots to people who have been included on the administration’s error-riddled lists of residents whom it says have voted illegally.

“Because the public has a paramount interest in ensuring that election officials and workers are able to carry out their work in accordance with federal law and election procedure, and the official day of the elections is only a couple of days away, the balance of the equities and public interest weigh in plaintiffs’ favor,” said Thompson.

The ruling was handed down in connection with a lawsuit filed by the........

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