Trump administration asks Washington state to set aside hundreds of suspected noncitizen ballots

The US Justice Department on Monday asked Washington state, in the northwest of the country, to set aside any ballots submitted by more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship. The demand comes less than two weeks after a similar one directed at California, and it concerns next month's midterm elections, which will help decide control of the Senate and House of Representatives.

What the department wants

In a letter to Washington secretary of state Steve Hobbs, the department said it had identified 1,500 votes cast in earlier elections by more than 400 people. It asked that any ballots they cast be held back until state officials confirm they are legally eligible. Washington has more than 5 million registered voters, and all of them receive mail ballots.

Charles Neil Floyd, the acting US attorney in Seattle, said the 405 voters found so far were "the tip of the iceberg". He said limits placed on the investigation by the state meant only a fraction of the total had been uncovered. Much of the list was built from recent contacts with suspected noncitizens. The department has also demanded addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and partial social security numbers.

The state's response

Hobbs said his office was reviewing the request. It noted that the department's data included the last time each of the 405 people voted, and that one of those votes dated from 1994. Hobbs said the timing, a week before the general election, was intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results. Noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare.

Similar cases elsewhere

The Washington request is the third time this month the department has directly challenged a state while voting is under way; the others are California and Alaska. Washington's third congressional district is among the most competitive in the country, and Democrats are counting on congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez to win reelection in their bid to retake the House majority.

In California, where the department wants up to 20,000 people's mail ballots set aside, a federal appeals panel on Monday declined to rule on the expedited timeline and sent the matter back to a lower court. A Los Angeles county official said a sample of 200 records from the federal list included canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history and apparent US-born voters.