WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says it has identified more than 400 people in Washington who may be illegally registered to vote and is asking the state to set aside their ballots until their citizenship can be verified.
Neil Floyd, acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said Monday that it is now up to state officials to respond.
“Now it is incumbent upon the state to take action,” Floyd said.
Washington’s Office of the Secretary of State confirmed it received the request and said it is carefully reviewing it to ensure the state’s response complies with applicable state and federal laws.
The office also pointed to a federal law that limits the ability of states and counties to remove voters within 90 days of a federal election.
“The timing of this request—one week before the General Election—is no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results,” Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement.
Washington election officials also confirmed they received Justice Department subpoenas seeking voter information. The Secretary of State’s office said protecting voters’ private data remains a top priority.
The dispute comes amid a broader federal effort focused on potential voting by non-citizens.
Floyd said the federal government has been unable to access all of the voter information it wants from Washington. Instead, according to Floyd, investigators compared publicly available voter-registration information with Department of Homeland Security data.
“We may never know the full extent of illegal voting in this state without access to the full database,” Floyd said.
Floyd claimed that ballots are sent to people who are not eligible to vote.
But questions have been raised about the reliability of federal data being used to identify potential non-citizens. On Friday, a federal judge found that the government’s search for non-citizen voters relied on data containing errors.
KIRO 7 asked Floyd about concerns that federal databases used to check voters’ citizenship have incorrectly flagged U.S. citizens as potential non-citizens.
“There are two sides of the ledger,” Floyd said. “One side is, is this person that we have identified not a citizen? We’re the federal government. We know the answer to that question.”
Floyd said the challenge for federal investigators is determining who is actually voting.
“The other side of the ledger is who is voting? And that’s what we’re having a hard time getting access to,” he said.
Washington election officials told KIRO 7 the Constitution is clear that the authority to administer elections rests with the states.
“Courts around the country have confirmed that, including through the unanimous rejection of DOJ’s demands for confidential information on state voter roll,” a spokesperson for the Washington Secretary of State’s office wrote in a statement. “The DOJ lost their fight in court for Washington’s complete voter rolls last month.”
Floyd emphasized that federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections.
“It is illegal under Section 611 for noncitizens to vote,” Floyd said, adding that someone who assists another person in illegally voting could also face criminal liability.
Hobbs also pointed to a separate election issue involving changes at the U.S. Postal Service.
“At the same time, thousands of voters were recently disenfranchised in our August Primary due to delayed postmarks,” Hobbs said.
Hobbs and other state election leaders have said federal postal changes have significantly increased the number of ballots rejected because of late postmarks.
Washington officials told KIRO 7 that of 1.9 million ballots returned during the August primary, just over 20,000 were rejected for a late postmark. By comparison, about 4,600 ballots were rejected for that reason during the 2024 general election, when roughly 4 million ballots were returned.
Similar announcements involving suspected non-citizen voters have been made by the federal government in other states. In some instances, the numbers initially announced by federal officials have later been revised downward after the lists were reviewed and verified.
©2026 Cox Media Group
