The Trump administration on Monday asked Washington state to void all ballots received from more than 400 people it said were registered voters without U.S. citizenship, less than two weeks after making a similar request in California.
The announcement is the latest sign of the administration’s attempts to sow doubt about the election or its outcome in states where elections will help determine control of the U.S. Senate and House.
In a letter to Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the Justice Department said it identified 1,500 votes cast by more than 400 people in previous elections. He asked the state to set aside any ballots they might cast in next month’s midterm elections until state officials can confirm they are legally eligible to vote. The state has more than 5 million registered voters, and the state issues absentee ballots to every one of them.
At a news conference, Charles Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney in Seattle, said he believed the 405 voters identified so far represented “the tip of the iceberg.”
“Due to state limitations on our investigation, we were only able to uncover a fraction of the total number,” he said.
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. One was in 1994.
“The timing of this request – a week before the general election – is undoubtedly intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” Hobbs said.
Much of the list was constructed based on “recent contacts” with suspected noncitizens, Floyd said, because federal agents now routinely check whether the people they interact with are registered voters.
Without access to these state records, it will be difficult to prove that someone voted illegally, Floyd said. The Justice Department demanded information including addresses, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
The effort is the administration’s latest to identify non-citizen voters, even though non-citizen voting is exceptionally rare. Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to undermine public confidence in elections.
Meanwhile, officials in Washington noted that changes in the U.S. Postal Service’s operations have disenfranchised thousands of legitimate voters.
Washington’s request marks the third time this month that the Justice Department has directly challenged the state while voting is underway. All three states — Washington, California and Alaska — are holding House or Senate elections that will help determine the balance of power at the nation’s Capitol.
The race for Washington’s 3rd Congressional District is one of the most hotly contested in the country in this year’s midterm elections. Democrats are counting on the re-election of Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez as crucial to their strategy to win back the majority in the House. She won twice in a district that also supported the president every time he ran for office.
The Justice Department has sued California in a similar attempt to force the state to void the mail-in ballots of up to 20,000 people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. Another lawsuit filed in Alaska last week seeks to delay certification of the vote if the incumbent Republican does not win.
In California, a panel of federal appeals judges heard rare arguments Sunday and questioned the timing, constitutionality and authority of the Justice Department’s request. On Monday, they declined to rule on the accelerated deadline requested by the Justice Department and sent it back to a lower court.
The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the authority to establish the time, place, and manner of congressional elections.
Monica Flores, an assistant Los Angeles County registrar, said in a court filing that her staff reviewed a sample of 200 records from the Trump administration’s list. They found that the sample included canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history, and voters who appeared to be born in the United States.
California state officials on Monday touted the appeals court ruling as a victory for voting rights. State Attorney General Rob Bonta vowed to “fight the administration’s illegal excesses at every turn.” California Governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, accused Trump of an attack on democracy.
The Justice Department said in Washington that it plans to send the state an additional list of people it suspects are not citizens before Election Day. He also noted that some of the people he suspects were registered without citizenship may have since been naturalized.
Nick Robins-Early contributed reporting.
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