Justice Department Asks Washington to Set Aside Ballots of 400 Alleged Non-Citizens

The Trump administration has asked Washington state to set aside any ballots received from more than 400 people it alleges are registered to vote without U.S. citizenship, according to The Guardian.

In a letter to Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the Justice Department said it had identified 1,500 votes cast by more than 400 people in prior elections. It asked that any ballots those individuals might cast in the November midterm elections be set aside until state officials can confirm they are legally eligible to vote. Hobbs said he was reviewing the request.

Washington has more than 5 million registered voters, and it sends mail ballots to all of them. That makes the state's voting system heavily dependent on the mail, and any request to hold back individual ballots would affect a large number of households.

Charles Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. Attorney in Seattle, said the 405 voters identified so far represented "the tip of the iceberg." Data shared by the Justice Department included the last time each person voted. One of them last voted in 1994. The department also demanded voter information including addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Washington is not the only state involved. The Justice Department has sued California, seeking to require the state to set aside mail ballots from up to 20,000 people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. Federal appeals judges heard arguments in that case on a Sunday. On Monday they declined to rule on the department's request for a faster timeline and sent the matter back to a lower court.

A Justice Department lawsuit filed in Alaska last week seeks to delay certification of the vote, the official confirmation of results, if the Republican incumbent does not win.

The Washington request is the third direct challenge the department has brought against a state's voting this month. Washington, California and Alaska each have House or Senate races that bear on the balance of power in Congress.

Earlier in October, on the 19th, the department announced charges against 28 foreign nationals in connection with election crimes in California, according to a Justice Department press release.