US judge bars Alabama from purging thousands of voters before election

Republican state official tried to remove more than 3,200 people from voter rolls on suspicion they were non-citizens

Alabama cannot remove thousands of people from its voter rolls on the eve of the presidential election, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.

The US district judge Anna Manasco, an appointee of Donald Trump, issued a preliminary injunction halting an effort by Alabama’s top election official to try and remove more than 3,200 people from the voter rolls who it suspected of being non-citizens until at least after the presidential election.