The U.S. Department of Justice has formally requested that Washington state election officials sequester more than 400 ballots cast by individuals the federal government alleges are noncitizens. This move, announced Monday by Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, marks an intensification of the administration’s efforts to involve federal authorities in state-level ballot counting and certification processes just one week before the 2026 general election.
In a news release issued Monday, Floyd stated that his office has identified over 400 noncitizens who are currently registered to vote and have participated in multiple past elections. Floyd characterized the findings as “only the tip of the iceberg” and asserted that the federal government would continue to investigate and identify those allegedly committing crimes by voting illegally. The request explicitly asks the Washington Secretary of State to review the list of registrants and ensure any ballots they cast in the current cycle are sequestered, or held separately, from the general tally.
The Justice Department gave Washington state officials a 24-hour window to review the list against state citizenship records. The identification of these individuals reportedly stemmed from a cross-check of permanent legal residents, such as green card holders, against voter registration records. Floyd had previously criticized Washington for refusing to share unredacted voter rolls with federal authorities earlier this year, a decision he said made the investigation more time-consuming.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, whose office oversees the state’s more than 5 million registered voters, confirmed that his staff is reviewing the DOJ list. However, Hobbs issued a sharp rebuke of the federal government’s timing and motives. He stated that the request, arriving so close to the election, is intended to cast “unfounded suspicion” on the upcoming results. Hobbs emphasized that his office takes voter information privacy seriously and will only comply with requests that follow established due process.
This development in Washington follows a significant legal setback for the administration in California. On the same day the request was made to Washington, an appeals court ruled against a federal push to separate approximately 20,000 ballots in California. In that case, the Justice Department had similarly alleged that the voter rolls contained thousands of noncitizens. The appeals court determined that the Justice Department had failed to give lower courts an adequate opportunity to review the administration’s specific claims before seeking such a broad intervention.
Election officials in Los Angeles County have challenged the accuracy of the federal lists used in the California case. In a legal filing, local officials noted that the DOJ’s data appeared to rely on outdated records and included many individuals who are clearly U.S. citizens, including some who listed U.S. birthplaces on their registration forms. Experts note that newly naturalized citizens are often flagged as noncitizens in such databases because there is no single, real-time comprehensive list of U.S. citizens maintained by the federal government.
The push in Washington and California is part of a broader pattern of litigation and federal intervention in the 2026 election cycle. Last week, the administration filed a lawsuit in Alaska concerning the candidacy of a Senate hopeful who shares the same name as the Republican incumbent, Dan Sullivan. That suit seeks to block the certification of the race unless the incumbent Republican is declared the winner.
Legal experts have noted that these federal interventions are largely occurring on untested legal ground. Current federal laws do not explicitly grant the Justice Department the authority to intervene in the certification of elections or the specific counting of ballots, tasks that have historically been the sole purview of state and local governments. While noncitizens do occasionally appear on voter rolls, actual instances of noncitizens voting are rare, partly because the act is a felony that creates a permanent paper trail and carries severe penalties, including deportation.
