Justice Department Seeks to Isolate Washington Ballots From 405 Voters

The Justice Department asked Washington state on Monday to set aside ballots from 405 registered voters the federal government suspects are not citizens, marking its third challenge to a state election this month as voting is already underway. The request came less than two weeks after a similar demand in California, where federal appellate judges sent the matter back to a lower court on Monday without ruling on the department's expedited timeline.

In a letter to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the department said it identified 1,500 votes cast by more than 400 individuals in prior elections and asked that any ballots they submit in the midterms be held until the state verifies their eligibility. Washington has more than 5 million registered voters and mails ballots to all of them. The state's third congressional district, where Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is running for reelection, is among the most competitive House races in the country.

Acting U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd said at a news conference that the 405 voters identified so far are "the tip of the iceberg." He said federal officers now routinely check whether people they interact with are registered to vote, and that much of the list was built from those contacts. Floyd said proving an illegal vote requires state records the department does not have, including addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

Hobbs said he is reviewing the request and that his office received the date each of the 405 people last voted. 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 unfound suspicion on the results," Hobbs said.

The department told Washington it plans to send an additional list of suspected noncitizens before Election Day and noted that some people on the current list may have since become naturalized. In California, Los Angeles County assistant registrar-recorder Monica Flores reviewed a sample of 200 records from the federal list and found canceled or inactive registrations, people with no voting history and voters who appeared to have been born in the United States. The Justice Department's lawsuit in Alaska seeks to delay certification of the vote if the Republican incumbent does not win.

The Constitution's elections clause assigns state legislatures the power to set the time, place and manner of congressional elections. Washington officials have also attributed the disenfranchisement of thousands of legitimate voters to changes in U.S. Postal Service operations.