Investigation Reveals Non-Citizens Voting in Washington State

Federal prosecutors announced on Monday that they have identified 405 individuals they believe to be non-U.S. citizens who participated in elections in Washington state, casting over 1,500 ballots across various elections.

Neil Floyd, acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, indicated that federal officials have provided these names to state election officials, requesting that any ballots from these voters be set aside while their eligibility is verified.

Floyd expressed confidence in the investigation’s results but suggested that the actual number of non-citizens who voted in the state could be significantly higher. He noted:

Through our investigation, we have confirmed with high confidence that non-citizens are voting in the state of Washington in federal and state elections. Thus far, we have identified over 400 non-citizens who have voted in Washington, and many of them have voted multiple times. That means we have identified over 1,500 ballots illegally cast. This is not the full number of non-citizens who have been voting in Washington. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I’m confident that we are looking at thousands of non-citizens who have been voting in Washington.

No statewide count was provided to back up Floyd’s claims about thousands of non-citizens voting. The 1,500 ballots mentioned are said to have been cast over several decades, according to reports regarding the investigation.

This information comes just ahead of the midterm elections set for November 3.

Floyd stated that investigators at the Department of Homeland Security compared public voter records from Washington with federal databases to identify voters they believe are not citizens. They then verified whether these individuals had voted.

He mentioned that multiple checks were necessary to ensure the records matched the same person, resulting in a time-consuming process.

Washington has not shared its complete voter registration database with federal authorities, including personal identifying details. Floyd said:

Washington has refused to share the complete list of registered voters with identifying information. We are having to do this essentially one person at a time. If we had access to the full database maintained by Washington, this could be done much more efficiently. We could simply compare Washington’s information to ours and it would yield immediate results.

Furthermore, Floyd stated that his office intends to pursue legal action against individuals who vote unlawfully, as well as those who assist them in doing so.

Recently, it was reported that officials in Los Angeles County informed a court that they could not independently verify the citizenship of voters beyond what was indicated on their registration forms.

The Justice Department has also taken legal action against California, seeking to halt the counting of mailed ballots from over 20,000 registered voters that federal officials identified as likely non-citizens until their citizenship status could be confirmed. California officials are contesting the validity of the evidence supporting this list.