DOJ Asks Washington to Set Aside Ballots From More Than 400 Suspected Noncitizen Voters
The Justice Department asked Washington state to segregate ballots from more than 400 people it says may be noncitizens while officials verify eligibility, but the state was still reviewing the request and the allegation remained unproven.
The Justice Department asked Washington state on Monday, October 26, 2026, to set aside any midterm ballots received from more than 400 people the department suspects registered without U.S. citizenship. The request is a direct election-administration action by President Donald Trump’s administration, but it does not establish that the people on the federal list are noncitizens or legally ineligible to vote.
In a letter described by The Associated Press and in a news conference, federal officials said the identified registrants had cast about 1,500 votes in previous elections. Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd said the state should segregate any new ballots from those names until election officials can confirm eligibility. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said his office was reviewing the request rather than accepting the allegation as proven.
What the Justice Department requested
The department asked Washington election officials to hold aside ballots linked to the listed names during the November midterm election while the state checks whether each person is eligible. DOJ also said another list could arrive before Election Day. Its communication acknowledged that some people flagged as possible noncitizens may have become naturalized since the records used by federal officials were created.
Washington has more than 5 million registered voters and conducts elections primarily by mail, with eligible voters receiving ballots by default. Hobbs’s office said it had received approximately 60 Justice Department subpoenas seeking voter information since September. Floyd said the latest names were identified with what he called high confidence, but officials had not publicly detailed evidence that would allow each individual claim to be independently tested.
Washington officials cite due process and voter privacy
Hobbs said the state takes protection of voter information seriously and would respond only to requests that follow due process. He also said Washington did not want its residents harassed as officials watched a similar dispute unfold in California. His office told Democracy Docket it was assessing the request under state and federal law and would not release information protected by those laws.
The secretary of state also pointed to the federal 90-day restriction on systematic removal of voters from registration rolls before a federal election. Setting a ballot aside for an eligibility review is not identical to canceling a registration, so the precise legal and operational response remained unresolved. At the time of the reports, Washington had not announced that it would sequester the ballots sought by DOJ.
The federal claims remain disputed
Noncitizen voting is illegal in federal elections, but verified cases are rare. Hobbs’s office told Democracy Docket that Washington had documented 15 instances of illegal voting since 1982. That figure and the federal list measure different things: one refers to documented cases, while the other is a collection of people DOJ says require further eligibility checks. Neither number by itself proves what any named voter’s current citizenship status is.
Past federal and local screening efforts also show why the underlying records require individual verification. AP reported that an earlier Trump administration claim involving 1,500 potential noncitizen voters in Nevada produced no confirmed cases after investigation. In Maricopa County, Arizona, a list initially described as containing 207 possible noncitizens was narrowed to eight by the Republican county attorney.
A parallel fight in California
The Washington request resembles a Justice Department effort to prevent California from counting ballots from as many as 20,000 people the administration described as suspected noncitizens. California challenged that demand in court. According to AP, Los Angeles County officials reviewed a sample of 200 federal records and found canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history and apparent U.S.-born voters among them.
The immediate question is therefore whether Washington’s review substantiates any of the federal matches and what process officials use for any ballot connected to a disputed record. Until that review produces person-by-person findings or a court issues an order, the central fact is narrower than the administration’s allegation: DOJ has requested that certain ballots be separated, and Washington officials are evaluating both the evidence and the legal authority behind that request.
Sources and image credit
- PBS NewsHour / Associated Press — Trump administration asks Washington to set aside ballots
- Democracy Docket — DOJ request and Washington secretary of state response
- U.S. Department of Justice — Federal data statement on Washington registrations
- Image: Olympia Black Lake ballot drop box, Wikimedia Commons
- Original full-resolution image