Justice Department asks Washington state to set aside ballots from 405 suspected noncitizen voters

The Trump administration on Monday asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without US citizenship. The request came less than two weeks after a similar demand was made in California.

In a letter to Washington secretary of state Steve Hobbs, the justice department said it had identified 1,500 votes cast in prior elections by 405 people. It asked the state to hold any ballots those people submit in next month's midterm elections until officials can confirm they are legally eligible. Washington has more than 5 million registered voters, and every one of them is mailed a ballot.

Speaking at a news conference, Charles Neil Floyd, the acting US attorney in Seattle, said he believed the 405 names found so far were "the tip of the iceberg". He said the state had limited the investigation, so federal investigators had only been able to uncover a fraction of the total.

Floyd said much of the list was compiled from recent contacts with suspected noncitizens, since federal officers now routinely check whether the people they encounter are registered to vote. He added that proving someone voted illegally will be difficult without access to state records. The justice department has demanded details including addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and partial social security numbers.

Hobbs said he was reviewing the request. His office pointed out that the data supplied by the department included the date each of the 405 people last voted, and that one of those votes was cast in 1994. "The timing of this request, one week before the general election, is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results," Hobbs said.

The Washington request is the third direct challenge to a state that the justice department has brought this month while voting is under way. California and Alaska are the other two, and all three have House or Senate races that will help decide the balance of power in Congress. Washington's third congressional district is among the most competitive in the country. Democrats are counting on congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who has won the seat twice, to hold it as part of their plan to retake the House majority. The district has also backed the president each time he has been on the ballot.

In California, the justice department sued to require the state to set aside mail ballots from up to 20,000 people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. A panel of federal appellate judges heard rare Sunday arguments and questioned the timing, constitutionality and authority of the demand. On Monday, the panel declined to rule on the expedited timeline the department sought and sent the matter back to a lower court. Separately, a lawsuit filed in Alaska last week seeks to delay certification of the vote if the Republican incumbent does not win.

Monica Flores, assistant registrar-recorder for Los Angeles county, said in a court filing that her staff reviewed a sample of 200 records from the administration's list. The sample included canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history and voters who appeared to have been born in the United States. California attorney general Rob Bonta vowed to "fight back against the administration's unlawful overreach at every turn", while governor Gavin Newsom accused Trump of an assault on democracy.

Noncitizen voting is exceptionally rare, and Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine public confidence in elections. Washington officials have also noted that changes in US Postal Service operations have disenfranchised thousands of legitimate voters. The justice department told the state it expects to send another list of suspected noncitizens before election day, and acknowledged that some of those people may have since become naturalized.