DOJ News: Groups Sue Over Washington Ballot Demand
Meta description: Pro-voter groups sued Trump and federal agencies over the demand Washington set aside ballots from over 400 voters, days before the Nov. 3 midterms.
In doj news that arrives with voting already under way, pro-voter groups have sued President Donald Trump and top federal agencies over a demand that Washington state set aside ballots from more than 400 people the administration claims are noncitizens registered to vote illegally. The complaint was filed on Friday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, in Seattle, by OneAmerica Votes, the Latino Community Fund of Washington and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Its targets include the president, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and federal prosecutors in Washington. The groups describe the federal effort as a flagrantly unlawful, chilling, eleventh-hour operation, and they argue that it is already doing harm even before any court has ruled on it, because it pressures the local officials who run elections and frightens the voters most likely to be caught up in a flawed list.
The lawsuit is the latest turn in a dispute that began, in Washington, with a letter and a news conference rather than a court filing. On Monday, October 26, the Justice Department sent Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs a list of about 400 registered voters that federal agencies believe are or were noncitizens, while conceding that some of them may since have become naturalised citizens. The letter gave Hobbs 48 hours to instruct county officials not to verify signatures on, or tabulate, any ballots from those voters. At a news conference the same day, Neil Floyd, the acting United States attorney for the Western District of Washington, described the 405 people identified so far as only the tip of the iceberg. He also warned that anyone who assists someone in voting illegally could be guilty under an aiding-and-abetting theory, a warning the plaintiffs say was aimed at election officials as much as at voters. Simon Peter Serrano, the first assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, was reported as saying that the federal government wanted to make sure these ballots are not counted, while acknowledging that the demand would put county auditors in a pickle.
Washington did not comply. Hobbs said he was reviewing the request, and his office pointed out that the data shared by the department included the last time each of the 405 people voted, and that one of them last voted in 1994. The secretary of state’s office also said the system the Justice Department uses frequently flags legitimate United States citizens as noncitizens, putting their legal right to vote at risk. That refusal matters, because Washington runs its elections almost entirely by mail, and ballots were already being cast and processed when the demand arrived. By October 27, more than one million voters in the state had already submitted their ballots. A demand to pull a set of ballots out of that stream, days before the general election on Tuesday, November 3, is therefore not an abstract question about a voter list. It is a practical instruction to county offices in the middle of counting, and the plaintiffs argue that the timing is part of the problem, not an accident of it.
DOJ News: What the New Lawsuit Argues
The complaint’s central claim is that the federal government has no legal authority to do what it has done in Washington, and that it is trying to get by pressure what it could not get through the courts. The groups argue that the list itself is not evidence of anything, a phrase that captures their view that a bulk data match, produced without individual proof, cannot justify setting ballots aside. They say a preliminary review by Washington officials already showed the list contains United States citizens, people who are not currently registered to vote and inactive voters, and they add that the sloppiness of the federal work is evident on its face. Hobbs himself described the list of 405 alleged noncitizen voters as a dumpster fire, a blunt assessment from the official who received it and one that the plaintiffs quote in support of their case.
The legal claims go further than a dispute about data quality. The groups say the effort violates the Voting Rights Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Tenth Amendment, which reserves powers not granted to the federal government to the states or the people. They argue that the Constitution’s Elections Clause gives state legislatures the power to set the time, place and manner of congressional elections, and that the federal government cannot override state election procedures on suspicion alone, without proof in individual cases. They also say the operation is designed to coerce Washington’s election officials into abandoning the procedures that state and federal law require, and to chill eligible voters, above all naturalised citizens, who are most likely to be misidentified by federal records.
Mail-in Voting: Why the Timing Matters in Washington
The dispute cannot be understood without Washington’s voting system. The state votes by mail, and ballots were already being cast and processed when the demand arrived. By October 27, more than one million voters in the state had already submitted their ballots. A demand to pull a set of ballots out of that stream, days before the general election on Tuesday, November 3, is therefore not an abstract question about a voter list. It is a practical instruction to county offices in the middle of counting, and the plaintiffs argue that the timing is part of the problem, not an accident of it.
The letter itself added to the confusion, according to the plaintiffs. It listed Election Day as November 2 rather than November 3, an error the groups cite as further evidence of haste. More importantly, the letter was backed by a threat: the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security have warned local election officials that they could face prosecution if they do not comply. That threat is central to the new lawsuit, because it is what turns a request into coercion in the plaintiffs’ argument, and they say the chilling effect on officials and voters is already causing irreparable harm.
Washington’s earlier history with the administration also shapes the case. The Justice Department previously sued Washington to obtain the state’s voter rolls, but that case was dismissed last month by a federal judge in Seattle. The administration has also sought unredacted voter lists from nearly every state, and has sued roughly 30 states that refused to hand them over, losing every court decision on that question so far, according to reporting on the wider dispute.
Midterm Elections 2026: The California Parallel
California is the parallel that runs through every part of the Washington case, because it is where the same kind of demand was tested in court first, and where it failed. Earlier in October, the administration sued to stop California from processing and tabulating ballots from about 20,000 people it alleges, without evidence in individual cases, are likely noncitizens. The Justice Department has lost three times in court on that demand, with a federal judge finding that it violates longstanding constitutional principles, including the Elections Clause. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals then rejected the department’s California lawsuit on procedural grounds, in a 2-1 decision.
The California proceedings also exposed how the lists are made, and why state officials and election experts question them. The administration obtained California’s public voter list in August 2025, and the Department of Homeland Security then analysed it, using a commercial system to compare it with immigration databases and then checking the results against federal databases and conducting manual checks. State lawyers and outside groups argued that the data was outdated and flawed, and that the process was a recipe for disenfranchising United States citizens, while the department said its own review supported its matches.
The pattern is not confined to California and Washington. In Nevada, the department alleged it had identified 15,903 noncitizens on the voter rolls, but in a follow-up meeting officials told the state they had confirmed just 185 registrants as noncitizens through manual review, and Nevada officials replied that their own records indicated those people were citizens. Those figures show why the Washington plaintiffs insist on individual proof: a list of potential matches, they argue, is not the same as a finding that any particular person voted unlawfully, and it cannot justify setting ballots aside.
Election Results: What Happens Next
What happens next will be decided in two places at once: in the Seattle courtroom where the new lawsuit was filed, and in county election offices across Washington as ballots continue to arrive. The plaintiffs are asking the court not to let what they call a lawless noncitizen-voter operation continue. A court could grant urgent relief before Election Day, decline to intervene, or take a narrower course. None of those outcomes had been reported when this article was written, and the administration had not yet set out a detailed response to the new complaint in the reporting reviewed.
The election itself will not wait for the courts. Voters in Washington and across the country will cast ballots in the midterm elections 2026 on Tuesday, November 3, when control of Congress and a host of state offices will be decided. In Washington, the practical question for election officials is how to handle any ballots that match the federal list without disenfranchising citizens whose names appear because of a data error, a name change, or a naturalisation that federal records have not yet caught up with.
The wider significance of the case is that it tests, in the final days of a campaign, where the boundary lies between federal enforcement and state-run elections. The administration argues that it is protecting lawful votes by identifying people who should not be on the rolls. The plaintiffs argue that it is using unproven lists and threats of prosecution to interfere with elections that states are constitutionally charged with running, and that the courts have already rejected that approach in California.
For now, the facts are these. The Justice Department asked Washington on October 26 to set aside ballots from about 400 people it claims may be noncitizens, giving the state 48 hours to comply and warning of criminal liability for those who assist unlawful voting. Washington refused, saying the list was flawed and included citizens and inactive or unregistered people. Pro-voter groups sued on Friday, arguing that the demand violates the Voting Rights Act, the Administrative Procedure Act and the Tenth Amendment, and that it is designed to coerce officials and chill voters, above all naturalised citizens. California’s parallel demand for 20,000 ballots has already been rejected three times in court. What the Seattle court does with the Washington case, and whether it acts before November 3, is the next question.
Source: Democracy Docket