Washington — Federal prosecutors in Washington state urged the state’s chief election official Monday to withhold ballots from more than 400 people they suspect are not U.S. citizens, escalating a Justice Department campaign questioning the reliability of voter registration records less than two weeks before the midterm election.
Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. attorney in Seattle, and Pete Serrano, the leading federal prosecutor in eastern Washington, said many of the registered voters on their list may be green-card holders. Although lawful permanent residents can live and work legally in the United States, they are not citizens and cannot vote in federal elections.
The prosecutors alleged that some of those individuals cast ballots in several elections. Floyd estimated that the total number of potentially unlawful ballots could exceed 1,500.
“This is not the full number of noncitizens who have been voting in Washington,” Floyd said. “This is only the tip of the iceberg.”
Floyd and Serrano said they sent Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs a list identifying 405 people they contend were improperly registered. They asked him to separate any ballots those voters submit while officials verify whether they are U.S. citizens.
In a letter dated Monday, the prosecutors said the Department of Homeland Security had identified some of the individuals as noncitizens who voted as recently as Washington’s August primary. They also said certain people had voted in the state for more than 10 years, in some cases casting ballots more than 24 times.
The prosecutors said DHS is expected to provide election officials with another list of people it believes are not U.S. citizens “imminently.”
Floyd and Serrano gave Hobbs 48 hours, until Wednesday, to examine the list and establish whether the voters are citizens. They also asked him to instruct election officials not to count ballots from those individuals until their citizenship status is resolved.
“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,” they wrote.
Hobbs confirmed that his office received the Justice Department’s letter but questioned the reliability of the information it contained, including the dates listed for voters’ most recent participation. According to the secretary of state’s office, the records include multiple entries involving people who apparently last voted in the 1990s, including one person whose most recent vote was recorded in 1994. Since then, more than 113 million primary and general election ballots have been cast.
“We take our responsibility to protect voter information seriously and will only respond to requests that follow due process. We saw what happened in California and don’t want Washingtonians to be harassed,” Hobbs said in a statement.
Hobbs also said the request’s timing—one week before the Nov. 3 election—“is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results.”
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The Justice Department requested Washington’s unredacted voter registration records last year. After Hobbs declined to release them, the Trump administration sued the state seeking access to data that includes voters’ names, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit last month. The Trump administration has filed lawsuits against 30 states and the District of Columbia in an effort to obtain complete voter rolls. Federal judges have rejected 27 of those cases, while three remain active. A separate lawsuit against Oklahoma was voluntarily withdrawn.
During a news conference, Floyd said DHS turned to a publicly available Washington voter list after the state refused to provide its unredacted records. The agency compared that list with government databases to identify people allegedly lacking U.S. citizenship, then conducted additional reviews to determine whether those individuals had voted in Washington, he said.
The secretary of state’s office, however, said the Justice Department’s matching process can incorrectly label American citizens as noncitizens, potentially threatening eligible voters’ right to participate.
Federal law makes it illegal for noncitizens to vote in U.S. elections, though documented cases of noncitizen voting are uncommon.
“At a time when thousands of Washington voters already face ballot rejections due to delayed postmarks, our focus should be on ensuring every eligible voter can exercise their right to vote, not creating additional uncertainty about their eligibility,” Hobbs said.
The Washington dispute follows a similar Justice Department effort in California, where officials received letters earlier this month asking them to separate mail ballots cast by registered voters the federal government says are noncitizens.
Trump administration attorneys gave California election officials 48 hours to review the list and confirm the citizenship status of the voters identified.
The Justice Department went on to file a lawsuit against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan. It asked a federal court to block the state from tabulating mail ballots received from 20,000 people who it believes are likely noncitizens until their citizenship status can be verified.
A hearing is set for Tuesday on the Justice Department’s bid to force California to set aside the mail ballots from registered voters on its list. A longshot effort by the Trump administration to obtain an order from a federal appeals court was dismissed Monday night.
So far, the Justice Department has only sent a letter to Washington and has not yet filed a lawsuit seeking to force its election officials to separate mail ballots returned from the 400 alleged noncitizens.
