The US Justice Department has asked Washington state not to count any mail ballots received from more than 400 residents who it says may not be US citizens, opening a new front in the administration's push over election administration one week before the November 3 midterm elections, Reuters reported on Tuesday, October 27.

Source: Reuters

In a letter dated October 26, the top federal prosecutors in Seattle and Spokane asked Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs to determine whether the more than 400 people were in fact US citizens and to not count their ballots until their citizenship was determined. The letter said the Justice Department would seek “emergency relief” if the state could not take those actions by noon local time on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

CBS News reported that the department asked that ballots from 405 registered voters be set aside until their citizenship status can be verified, and that federal prosecutors said the individuals may have cast more than 1,500 ballots in previous elections — a claim state officials have questioned the accuracy of. Acting US Attorney Neil Floyd described the investigation as incomplete at a news conference in Seattle, saying: “This is not the full number of noncitizens who have been voting in Washington. This is only the tip of the iceberg.”

Source: CBS News

Federal officials said some of those identified may hold green cards, which confer lawful permanent residency but do not authorize voting in federal elections. In its letter, the Justice Department acknowledged that some of the individuals flagged as possible noncitizens may have since naturalized, but it did not say how many, Reuters reported. Hobbs' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Washington has more than 5 million registered voters and sends mail ballots to all of them.

The Washington letter resembled a request earlier this month that California not count any ballots received from around 20,000 alleged noncitizens. After California officials said complying would be impractical and questioned the accuracy of the information, federal prosecutors sued to block the state from counting those ballots; a hearing in that case was scheduled for Tuesday before US District Judge David Carter in Los Angeles, and a federal appeals court on Monday night denied the Justice Department's request to block California from counting the ballots before Carter ruled.

Multiple state audits and independent studies have found that voter fraud, including voting by noncitizens, is very rare and has not affected election outcomes, and Democrats and voting rights advocates say federal citizenship data is often outdated, meaning naturalized citizens are often mistakenly flagged, Reuters reported. Republicans are locked in a tight battle to retain slim majorities in both chambers of Congress, and southwest Washington Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez's re-election campaign is one of 10 key races that could decide control of the US House.