Justice Department Asks Washington to Set Aside Ballots From 400 Voters It Says May Be Noncitizens

The Trump administration on Monday asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges registered to vote without United States citizenship, less than two weeks after making a similar demand in California.

The request, made by the Justice Department in a letter to Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, is the latest in a series of direct federal challenges to state election administration as voting is already underway in the 2026 midterm elections. It comes one week before the November 3 general election, in a state where every registered voter is mailed a ballot, and where one of the country's most competitive House races could help decide control of Congress.

This article explains what the Justice Department asked for, what Washington officials said in response, how this request fits alongside the California and Alaska cases, and why past allegations of noncitizen voting have often turned out to be far smaller than first claimed.

What the Justice Department asked Washington to do

According to the Associated Press report from Seattle, the Justice Department said it had identified 1,500 votes cast by the more than 400 people in prior elections. It asked the state to set aside any ballots those people might cast in next month's midterm election until state officials can confirm they are legally eligible to vote.

Washington has more than 5 million registered voters, and the state issues mail ballots to all of them. Against that total, 405 people is a small number — less than one-hundredth of one percent of registered voters. But the request is not about the size of the list alone. It is about timing, authority, and precedent: a federal request, one week before a general election, to segregate ballots from named voters before those voters' eligibility has been finally determined by the state.

At a news conference, Neil Floyd, the acting United States attorney in Seattle, said he believed the 405 voters identified so far represented "the tip of the iceberg."

"Because of limitations the state has placed on our investigation, we've only been able to uncover a fraction of the total number," Floyd said.

The Justice Department told Washington it anticipates sending the state an additional list of people it suspects are not citizens before Election Day. It also noted that some of the people it suspects registered without citizenship may have since become naturalized — meaning some people on the list may now be fully eligible citizens, even if the original registration raised a question.

Much of the list, Floyd said, was built based on "recent contacts" with suspected noncitizens, because federal officers are now routinely checking to see if the people they interact with are registered to vote. Without access to state records, proving someone illegally voted will be difficult, Floyd said. The Justice Department has demanded information including addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers.

That demand for state records is itself a point of dispute. Federal and state officials have clashed over how much voter-roll data states must share, what privacy protections apply, and whether the federal government can require states to hand over sensitive personal information about voters as part of an investigation into a small number of registrations.

Washington's response: reviewing, and questioning the timing

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he was reviewing the Justice Department's request. His office noted that the data shared by the department included the last time each of the 405 people voted — and that one listed voter last cast a ballot in 1994.

That detail matters because it undercuts the idea that the list describes an active, current threat to the 2026 election. A voter whose last ballot was cast more than three decades ago is not, on that fact alone, evidence of a present-day voting problem. It raises the question of how current the underlying data is, and whether the list includes people who are no longer on the active rolls, have moved, have died, or have since become citizens.

Hobbs was blunt about the timing. "The timing of this request — one week before the General Election — is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results," he said.

That charge — that the request is designed to sow doubt rather than to solve a proven problem — is the same argument state officials have made in the other recent cases. The Associated Press report framed the Washington announcement as "the latest sign of the administration's attempts to sow doubts about the election or its outcome in states with races that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate and House."

Washington officials have also noted, in the broader context described in the report, that changes in United States Postal Service operations have disenfranchised thousands of legitimate voters. That is a separate dispute, about mail delivery rather than voter eligibility, but it shows how many different fronts the election-administration fight is now being fought on in Washington: who is eligible, how ballots are delivered, and which ballots count.

As of the report, Hobbs had not said he would agree to set aside the ballots as requested. He said he was reviewing the request. That leaves the immediate practical question open: will Washington segregate ballots from the listed voters, will it reject the request, or will it seek a court ruling before Election Day? With one week to go, any of those paths would have to move fast.

The third state challenge in one month

The Washington request marks the third time this month that the Justice Department has brought a direct state challenge as voting is underway. All three states — Washington, California, and Alaska — have House or Senate races that will help determine the balance of power in Congress.

In California, the Justice Department sued as part of a similar attempt to require the state to set aside mail ballots from up to 20,000 people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. That case went to a panel of federal appellate judges for rare Sunday arguments, in a hearing that was itself covered on this blog. The judges questioned the timing, constitutionality, and authority of the Justice Department's demand. On Monday, they declined to rule on the expedited timeline the Justice Department requested and sent the case back to a lower court.

In Alaska, another lawsuit filed last week seeks to delay certification of the vote if the Republican incumbent does not win. That case, involving two men named Daniel Sullivan and a dispute over the Senate race, was also covered on this blog when the Justice Department first filed it, and again when Democrat Mary Peltola asked a judge to throw it out as, in her words, wholly baseless.

The pattern across all three cases is consistent: a federal claim about voter eligibility or certification, filed or pressed while voting is underway or about to be counted, in a state where the outcome could affect control of the House or Senate. Supporters of the Justice Department's actions say the federal government has a duty to act when it finds evidence of ineligible voting, whenever it finds it. Critics say filing so close to Election Day, before the evidence has been tested in court, creates doubt about results that have not yet been counted.

The Elections Clause of the United States Constitution gives state legislatures the power to set the time, place, and manner of congressional elections. That clause is at the heart of the legal dispute: states argue that running their own elections is their constitutional role, while the Justice Department argues that federal law on voter eligibility and civil rights gives it a role as well. Courts will have to sort out where one authority ends and the other begins — and in California, at least, the appellate judges have already shown they are skeptical of being rushed into a ruling on an expedited schedule.

Why Washington's 3rd District matters

The Washington request does not name a specific race, but the Associated Press report points to the race that gives the state its national importance in this cycle: Washington's 3rd Congressional District, described as one of the most competitive in the country in this year's midterm elections.

Democrats are counting on Representative Maria Gluesenkamp Perez winning reelection there as crucial to their strategy of retaking the majority in the United States House. She has won twice in a district that has also supported Trump each time he has been on the ballot — a rare combination that makes the district a genuine swing seat, not a safe seat for either party.

In a district that close, even a small dispute over ballots can take on outsized importance in public debate, even if the number of ballots involved could not by itself change the outcome. A House race decided by thousands of votes will not be decided by 405 ballots. But a dispute over 405 ballots, amplified in the final week of a campaign, can shape how voters in the district — and across the country — view the legitimacy of the result, whatever that result is.

That is why both sides are fighting so hard over the framing. The Justice Department frames the list as the visible part of a larger problem. Washington's secretary of state frames the request as a last-minute attempt to cast suspicion on an election that is already underway. Voters are left to weigh those two framings against the actual evidence, which, so far, consists of a list of names, a count of prior votes, and a set of claims that have not yet been tested in a Washington courtroom.

Prior allegations have often been overstated

One of the most important parts of the Associated Press report is its closing section, which looks at what happened the last time similar allegations were investigated. The pattern, repeatedly, is that the initial number turns out to be far larger than the number that survives scrutiny.

In Nevada, the Trump administration alleged there were 1,500 potential noncitizen voters on the rolls, but a subsequent investigation found zero. In Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, the county recorder — himself a Trump supporter — announced that there were 207 possible noncitizens on the county's rolls. The Republican county attorney then determined there were actually eight.

In California, the same kind of checking has already begun to narrow the list. Los Angeles County Assistant Registrar-Recorder Monica Flores said in a court filing that her staff went through a sample of 200 records from the Trump administration's list. They found the sample included canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history, and voters who appeared to have been born in the United States.

None of that proves that every name on the Washington list is wrong. It is possible that some of the 405 people did register or vote without citizenship, and that some of the 1,500 prior votes described by the Justice Department were cast by people who were not eligible at the time. The Justice Department itself acknowledged that some people on the list may have since become naturalized citizens, which would make them eligible now even if an earlier registration was questionable.

But the history does show why state officials insist on verifying names one by one, rather than setting aside ballots on the basis of a list alone. A list built from "recent contacts" with federal officers, from databases that may be out of date, and from records that include inactive registrations and people who last voted in 1994, is not the same as a proven finding of ineligible voting. It is a starting point for investigation, not a conclusion.

It is also worth stating the broader fact the report itself states: noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare. That does not mean it never happens. It means that claims involving thousands of voters should be treated with caution until the underlying records have been checked, because the documented cases, when they are found, have typically numbered in the single digits or low dozens, not in the thousands.

What to watch before Election Day

Several things could happen in the final week, and each would change the story.

First, Washington could respond formally to the Justice Department's letter — agreeing to set aside ballots, refusing, or asking a court to decide. Any response will be closely watched, because it will set a precedent for how states handle similar last-minute federal requests.

Second, the Justice Department could send the additional list it said it anticipates sending before Election Day. If that list is larger than the first, the dispute will grow. If it is smaller, or if it includes many of the same names, the claim that the first list was only the "tip of the iceberg" will be harder to sustain.

Third, the California case will continue in the lower court after the appellate panel sent it back. How that court handles the 20,000-name California list will influence how Washington officials, and officials in other states, view the legal strength of the Justice Department's approach.

Fourth, the Alaska certification case will continue to develop, with Peltola's motion to dismiss pending and the Justice Department's position under judicial scrutiny. Together, the three cases will give courts, and voters, a clearer picture of whether the federal challenges are built on verified evidence or on lists that shrink under examination.

Finally, and most importantly, voting itself will continue. Washington voters have already received mail ballots. They will return them, they will be counted under Washington law, and the results in the 3rd District and across the state will be certified under the procedures Washington has used for years. A dispute over 405 names, however heated the rhetoric around it becomes, does not stop that process — unless a court orders otherwise, which no court has done in Washington as of the report.

Voters who want to check their own status can do so through their county elections office and the secretary of state's voter portal, the standard route Washington has always provided. That advice applies regardless of which side of this dispute a voter agrees with: the surest way to be sure a ballot counts is to confirm registration early, follow the instructions on the ballot envelope, and return the ballot in time to be received by Election Day.

Frequently asked questions

What did the Justice Department ask Washington to do?

It asked Washington to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges registered to vote without United States citizenship, until the state can confirm those people are legally eligible to vote. The department said it had identified 1,500 votes cast by those people in prior elections.

How many people are on the list?

The acting United States attorney in Seattle, Neil Floyd, put the number at 405 voters identified so far. He said he believed that number represented "the tip of the iceberg" and that the department anticipates sending an additional list before Election Day.

What did Washington's secretary of state say?

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he was reviewing the request. His office noted that one listed voter last cast a ballot in 1994. Hobbs said: "The timing of this request — one week before the General Election — is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results."

Is this the first such request?

No. It is the third direct state challenge this month by the Justice Department as voting is underway. The others are in California, where the department sought to set aside mail ballots from up to 20,000 suspected noncitizens, and Alaska, where a lawsuit seeks to delay certification if the Republican incumbent does not win.

Have past noncitizen-voting claims held up?

Often, they have shrunk sharply on investigation. In Nevada, an allegation of 1,500 potential noncitizen voters led to a finding of zero. In Maricopa County, Arizona, 207 possible noncitizens became eight on closer review. In Los Angeles County, a sample of 200 records from the California list included canceled or inactive registrations and people who appeared to have been born in the United States.

Does this affect Washington's competitive House race?

Washington's 3rd District, held by Democrat Maria Gluesenkamp Perez, is one of the most competitive House races in the country and is important to Democrats' hopes of retaking the House majority. The ballot dispute does not name that race, but the report notes that all three states targeted this month have races that could affect control of Congress.

What happens next?

Washington's response to the letter, any additional list from the Justice Department, and the progress of the California and Alaska cases in court will all develop before and after Election Day on November 3. No court had ordered Washington to set aside ballots as of the Associated Press report.

Sources

Associated Press via KCAU 9 News, "Trump administration asks Washington to set aside ballots from 400 voters it says may be noncitizens," Seattle, October 26, 2026 (reported Monday).

Prior coverage on this blog: California Justice Department noncitizen-ballot case and Ninth Circuit Sunday hearing; Justice Department Alaska Senate certification lawsuit and Mary Peltola's motion to dismiss.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, statement as reported by the Associated Press; Acting United States Attorney Neil Floyd, news conference remarks as reported by the Associated Press.