The Department of Justice (DOJ) wants Washington state election officials to hold back the ballots of more than 400 voters it alleges are noncitizens—while its own letter concedes that some of those voters "may have subsequently naturalized." The 405 ballots the department wants set aside, in other words, could belong to U.S. citizens. On Monday, the day before Election Day, three civic and labor groups asked a federal judge in Seattle for an emergency order blocking the demand. Their lawsuit, filed Friday, argues the Trump administration has no legal power to tell a state which lawfully cast ballots to count.
It also says the administration is using the threat of prosecution to frighten election workers and naturalized voters. States administer elections in the U.S., while federal prosecutors can investigate and charge people suspected of violating federal election laws. But in the final weeks of the 2026 midterms, the DOJ has tried something rarer: telling states, before the votes are counted, which ballots to set aside.
Washington is the third state where the DOJ has gone to court or threatened to this fall over how votes are counted. In California, it sought to have ballots from more than 20,000 people it identified as likely noncitizens segregated; the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request Monday evening. In Alaska, it tried to block certification of the Senate race over a dispute about two candidates named Dan Sullivan, and a judge dismissed the case Sunday.
So far, every court to rule in these cases has turned the government down. The groups say the risk falls hardest on naturalized citizens. Federal records may not reflect that a green-card holder later became a citizen, they argue, and Washington’s elections office has said the federal system that the DOJ relies on frequently flags legitimate U.S. citizens.
The DOJ’s letter acknowledges the possibility in its own words. It does not say how many people on its list might be affected. Pete Serrano, the top federal prosecutor in eastern Washington, signed the October 26 letter to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs and announced it alongside Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney in Seattle.
It said the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had identified more than 400 people who were registered to vote in Washington despite not being citizens, and who had cast more than 1,500 ballots between them, some as recently as the August primary. It gave the state 24 hours to check the names and a deadline of noon October 28 to reply. The core request was blunt.
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