Washington state finds U.S. citizens on DOJ’s noncitizen voter list, rejects demand to set aside ballots

Key Points:

• Washington election officials found that a preliminary review of a federal list alleging over 400 noncitizen voters included U.S. citizens, inactive voters, and unregistered individuals, raising doubts about the list's accuracy.
• Secretary of State Steve Hobbs condemned the Department of Justice's (DOJ) demand to halt processing ballots from people on the list, calling the list unreliable and warning that refusing ballots without individualized proof would be illegal.
• The DOJ threatened emergency litigation if Washington did not comply with instructions to withhold ballot verification and tabulation for listed voters, but Hobbs highlighted multiple flaws in the list, including duplicate entries and missing data.
• Hobbs criticized the DOJ for factual errors, such as misstating Election Day, and emphasized that halting ballots based on unverified data could violate federal voting laws protecting qualified voters.
• He invited the DOJ to provide specific evidence against any voter suspected of ineligibility and urged reconsideration of the "deeply flawed data" rather than pursuing a lawsuit.