DOJ Challenges Washington Ballots

What happened

Updated Oct 27, 12:29am ET

The Justice Department asked Washington to set aside ballots from more than 400 people it suspects are not U.S. citizens, until their eligibility can be confirmed. Federal investigators say they compared voter-registration information with federal records, but prosecutors say Washington has not provided the unredacted voter database they requested. Noncitizen voting in U.S. elections is exceptionally rare, and Washington sends mail ballots to more than 5 million registered voters. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said his office was reviewing the request through due process, warning that late action could cast unfounded suspicion and expose voters to harassment. Federal prosecutors say they identified 405 suspected noncitizens in past voting, while Hobbs’ office says federal checks could wrongly flag citizens. Washington officials had not decided how to respond, and prosecutors expected another list before Election Day.

How the left told it

Only one left-leaning outlet we track covered this: The Guardian, under the headline “Trump administration asks Washington to set aside hundreds of ballots from suspected noncitizen…”.

How the right told it

Right-leaning outlets framed the request as an election-integrity safeguard, while also stressing the administration’s broader search for noncitizen voting. Newsmax cited Neil Floyd saying officials wanted ballots set aside until voter legality could be confirmed, and described the effort as politically charged despite rare noncitizen voting. Breitbart News cited Floyd saying investigators believed the problem could be much larger.