Washington votes by mail, and voting is already well underway. More than 700,000 ballots had come in by last week. On Monday, October 26, Trump's Justice Department told the state to pull some of them aside.

Charles Neil Floyd, the acting U.S. attorney in Seattle and a Trump appointee, sent Secretary of State Steve Hobbs a letter naming 405 people he claims are noncitizens registered to vote. He asked the state to set aside their ballots for next week's election until federal officials confirm they are voting legally.

He hasn't charged any of them. At a news conference, Floyd said, "I do anticipate that we will."

What the government is claiming

According to the Washington State Standard, Floyd's letter says the 405 people — many of them lawful permanent residents, meaning green card holders — have cast upward of 1,500 ballots in past state and federal elections, some of them for more than a decade. He called it "only the tip of the iceberg," and said the Department of Homeland Security would send another list before Election Day.

"Who is checking to make sure that the people registered to vote are United States citizens?" Floyd asked reporters. "Sadly, the answer to those questions in Washington is no one."

Washington's voters attest to their eligibility when they return a ballot. Hobbs says otherwise: voter fraud is incredibly rare in Washington, he said, and when cases are found they are forwarded to local authorities for prosecution.

Hobbs also noticed something about Floyd's list. One of the 405 records the federal government sent him, he said, dates from 1994.

"We saw what happened in California and don't want Washingtonians to be harassed," Hobbs said. He called the timing — a week before the election — "no doubt intended to cast unfounded suspicion on the results."

This is the California playbook

Hobbs is right that this has happened before, in California.

Earlier this month Trump's Justice Department handed Los Angeles County a password-protected thumb drive of supposed noncitizen voters and gave California 48 hours to review the list and set those voters' ballots aside. It then went to court to try to stop California from counting about 20,000 ballots. On Monday — the same day Floyd sent his letter — a federal appeals court refused to order California to set those ballots aside.

What did all that pressure find in California? Federal officials announced 28 cases of green card holders charged with illegal voting or registration, in a state with 23 million voters.

The last list fell apart

The closest thing to a test of these federal lists happened in Nevada. In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin claimed about 15,903 noncitizens were registered to vote there. The government later walked that back to just 185 potential noncitizens. When Nevada checked those 185 against its records, a state lawyer wrote that "our records indicate that they were citizens," and that the federal government had "provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

From roughly 16,000 claimed, to 185 named, to a state finding that its records showed those 185 were citizens. That is the record of the lists Washington is now being asked to act on.

It's one piece of a bigger push

Floyd said Washington made his job harder by refusing to hand over its full voter rolls. The Justice Department has spent more than a year trying to get them, including sensitive personal data, and a federal judge threw out its lawsuit to force the state to turn them over. Back in July, federal officials threatened to criminally prosecute election officials in Washington and other states over noncitizen voting. Hobbs says they have since filed more than 60 subpoenas for individual voter records.

And it landed the same day Donald Trump offered a $1 million bounty for voter fraud reports that lead to a conviction.

The pattern is the same everywhere: big claims of illegal voting just before an election, small numbers when anyone checks, and voters left wondering whether their ballot will count.

The bottom line

On October 26, with Washington's mail election already underway, Trump's acting U.S. attorney in Seattle demanded the state set aside the ballots of 405 people he says are noncitizens. He has charged none of them, and Hobbs says one of the records dates to 1994. When the administration sent Nevada a list like this, it shrank from about 16,000 claimed names to 185, and Nevada said its records showed all 185 were citizens.

Source

• Feds allege over 400 noncitizens vote in WA; Hobbs disputes data — Washington State Standard
• DOJ Tells Washington State To Set Aside Ballots of 400 Voters It Claims are Noncitizens — Talking Points Memo