US federal judge blocks Trump's door-to-door hunt for noncitizen voters in nine states less than two weeks before the midterms

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguin's 19-page ruling targets the 'Unlawful Voter Initiative', under which hundreds of Homeland Security agents fanned out to question registrants. She said the stops were likely to hamper voter registration drives run by local governments and nonprofits. She also said the government's 'target lists' already showed errors and included naturalised citizens. The Department of Homeland Security insists it used multiple data sources to weed out false positives.

California is among the nine states covered by Wednesday's ruling.

The judge stopped short of halting the field operations entirely.

Election supervisors in Florida's Leon and Monroe counties called the FBI after ICE agents appeared near early voting sites.