A grocery and meatpacking workers' union with more than 60,000 members in Washington state and two Washington voter groups sued President Donald Trump and his Justice Department on Friday, October 30, asking a federal judge in Seattle to stop the administration's push to hold back the ballots of about 405 Washington voters it calls noncitizens. OneAmerica Votes, the Latino Community Fund of Washington State and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) filed the case, OneAmerica Votes v. Trump, No. 2:26-cv-04223, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, calling the federal effort a “flagrantly unlawful, chilling, eleventh-hour operation.”
Source: Democracy Docket, Oct. 31, 2026
The lawsuit is the newest development in a confrontation Awaaz Punjab has followed all week: the Justice Department demanded on October 26 that Washington set aside those ballots, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs refused on October 28 after his office found U.S. citizens on the federal list, and federal prosecutors then escalated with a records warning on October 29. The voter groups have now taken the fight into court themselves, three days before the November 3 midterm elections decide control of Congress.
The plaintiffs ask the court for three things: a declaration that Washington officials who count ballots under state law do not break federal law merely because a voter appears on the federal list; an order barring the administration from pressuring officials to hold back those ballots or threatening them with prosecution; and an order requiring the government to tell Hobbs and every county auditor in writing that the demand is withdrawn. “Defendants' list is not evidence of anything, and their deeply chilling threats of federal penalty for election officials and others who fail to conform to their demands are baseless,” the groups said in the filing.
Source: Complaint, OneAmerica Votes v. Trump (via Democracy Docket)
How the fight reached court
On October 26, Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd of Seattle and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pete Serrano of the Eastern District of Washington sent Hobbs a letter asking him to tell county election officials “to not verify the signature and/or tabulate the ballot” of anyone on a list supplied by the Department of Homeland Security. The letter says the list holds “over 400 individuals and over 1,500 total votes” cast in earlier elections. It also concedes the people listed “are or were noncitizens” — wording that leaves open that some have since naturalized and are fully eligible citizens today.
Source: Workers Rights News, Oct. 31, 2026
The pressure did not stop at the letter. At a press conference the same day, Floyd said that “knowingly assisting those who are voting illegally is a crime,” and, asked whether county officials could be charged, said anyone who “assists someone in voting illegally would be also guilty of that crime under the aiding abetting theory,” according to a transcript filed with the complaint. On October 29, Acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter sent Hobbs a further letter warning that failing to preserve election records, including ballots, is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.
Hobbs refused on October 28. In his written response he said “many of the persons on your list are United States citizens,” that many others are not registered or are inactive, and that the list “is not reliable” — he has since described it as a “dumpster fire.” The list arrived as a PDF of a printed spreadsheet, without voter ID numbers or addresses, with duplicate entries and one record dating to 1994, CBS News reported. The Justice Department has not made public any evidence behind the list. Those are the state's and the plaintiffs' characterisations; the department's position is that the people identified voted without eligibility, an allegation it has not yet had to prove in this case.
The legal claims: elections belong to the states
The complaint names Trump, the Justice Department, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Floyd, Serrano, the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin. It argues the demand violates the Constitution's Elections Clause, which leaves the running of elections to the states; the Tenth Amendment; the Voting Rights Act's ban on intimidating voters and election workers; and the Administrative Procedure Act, the law that limits what federal agencies may do. “Federal law gives DOJ and DHS no authority whatsoever to do any of this,” the complaint says.
Source: The Digital Free Press, Oct. 31, 2026
The groups argue the harm is already happening and falls hardest on exactly the voters a list built from old federal records is most likely to get wrong. “It is plainly designed to coerce Washington's election officials into abandoning the procedures that state and federal law require, and it chills eligible voters — above all, naturalized citizens, the voters most likely to be misidentified by federal records — from exercising their right to vote,” they wrote. UFCW says many of its more than 60,000 Washington members are naturalized U.S. citizens, and the union is in the final days of get-out-the-vote work. For Washington's large immigrant communities — including Punjabi families around Seattle, Kent, Auburn and the farming valleys — the case is a direct test of whether a naturalized citizen's ballot can be sidelined on the strength of an unverified federal list.
Washington is the second front in the same fight
Washington is the second state targeted this way. In California, the administration sued to stop officials from processing ballots from about 20,000 voters it calls “likely noncitizens,” and it has lost three times in court, most recently when a Ninth Circuit panel again refused its emergency bid on October 30. The Washington plaintiffs say the administration, having faced judicial scrutiny in California, is trying “a different route” here — coercing local administrators directly instead of persuading a judge first.
Separately on Friday evening, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily barred the DOJ and DHS from threatening election workers over ballots in any state through November 16, in a case brought by SEIU, AFSCME and other groups. The Washington lawsuit seeks a permanent version of that protection for this state. Read: Judge bars DOJ and DHS threats against election officials through Nov. 16
No hearing had been set as of Saturday night, October 31, and the Justice Department had not publicly responded to the Washington lawsuit. Hobbs's refusal stands, and Washington counties — which vote entirely by mail and mailed ballots to active voters by October 16 — are processing ballots under state law. If you vote in Washington, your ballot must be returned by Tuesday, November 3; you can track it at VoteWA.gov. A ruling, or a federal emergency motion, could come at any point in the final 72 hours before polls close.