U.S. Citizens Included on Justice Department’s List of 400 Suspected Noncitizens, Washington State Says

Washington- Washington state’s elections official told the Justice Department on Wednesday that a list of 400 people the federal government claims are noncitizens registered to vote in the state was “unreliable” and contained “many” people who are U.S. citizens.

Steve Hobbs, Washington’s secretary of state, was responding to a letter from two federal prosecutors in the state. call for ballots received from suspected non-citizens be set aside and not counted until their citizenship status can be verified.

Prosecutors Neil Floyd and Pete Serrano sent their letter to Hobbs on Monday, a little more than a week before the Nov. 3 election, which will determine which party controls the House and Senate. Voting has been underway in Washington since mid-October and more than 1.3 million mail-in ballots were returned as of Wednesday.

But Hobbs said a preliminary investigation into the government’s list found that “many of the people on your list are U.S. citizens.” It also contained the records of a “significant number” of people who were not currently registered to vote in Washington or whose registrations are inactive, according to the secretary of state.

“It is almost certain that others named on this list are also U.S. citizens; those already identified may be just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of individuals who would be unjustly disenfranchised as a result of the actions you request,” Hobbs wrote in his own letter in response to Floyd and Serrano.

The secretary of state warned that it would likely be illegal for election workers not to count the ballots of people whose names appeared on what he called the Justice Department’s “unverified” list.

“Without individual proof of ineligibility, it would be both irresponsible and illegal for election officials to refuse to process a registered voter’s ballot,” Hobbs said.

The secretary of state also raised concerns about the process the Trump administration has in place to identify people it believes are on Washington’s voter rolls and are not eligible to vote. He said the Trump administration has not provided any information about how items on the list were collected or from what sources.

Additionally, Hobbs said the list was provided to him by Justice Department lawyers on a PDF document with a printed spreadsheet. This spreadsheet did not include publicly available fields to facilitate review of records, such as the voter’s identification number or the address of the alleged non-citizen. The list also included duplicate entries, according to the secretary of state, which he said indicates it was “created in a rush.”

The Justice Department’s request to Washington state is the second in recent weeks to raise allegations regarding non-citizens registered to vote in the state in the days leading up to the midterm elections. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter sent letters to California election officials earlier this month, demanding that they separate the ballots of 20,000 people the Trump administration considers non-citizens.

The Department of Justice continued sue California officials and requested a temporary order requiring election workers to set aside the thousands of ballots received from these alleged non-citizens.

But on Wednesday evening, a federal judge in California rejected the request of the Ministry of Justice and raised concerns about the process the government followed to create the list.

“Constitutional rights and our democracy are at stake. The public interest favors their protection,” said Judge David Carter. “Individuals who have met the requirements of California’s voter registration laws should not be deprived of a fundamental right simply because of unfounded allegations arising from a process fraught with uncertainty and error.”

In their letter earlier this week, Floyd and Serrano claimed that many of the more than 400 people they say are registered to vote in Washington are green card holders, who have legal immigration status but are not U.S. citizens and therefore cannot vote in federal elections.

They set a 48-hour deadline for Hobbs to review the list of 400 suspected non-citizens to determine their citizenship and ordered election officials not to tabulate ballots received from them until their citizenship could be verified.

“If you fail to implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to request emergency assistance,” they write.

It did not appear a complaint had been filed Thursday afternoon.