DOJ presses Washington to hold 400 ballots over citizenship doubts
What's next: Federal prosecutors threatened emergency court action if the state did not act by Wednesday noon local time.
The Justice Department asked Washington state election officials not to count mail ballots from more than 400 registered voters whose US citizenship it questioned, escalating a late-stage federal push over alleged noncitizen voting before the Nov. 3 midterms. In an Oct. 26 letter, the top federal prosecutors in Seattle and Spokane told Secretary of State Steve Hobbs to verify the voters' status and set aside any ballots until that review was complete. Hobbs pushed back, saying his office would respond only to requests that follow due process and arguing the timing was meant to cast doubt on the election. The move follows a similar fight in California, where federal prosecutors sought to block ballots tied to about 20,000 alleged noncitizens.