A letter dated 26 October 2026 from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington, signed by the acting U.S. Attorney and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pete Serrano, asks Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs to act on a Department of Homeland Security list before the 3 November general election. It follows the Justice Department’s suit against California over a similar list (our coverage).

What the letter says

  • DHS gave prosecutors a list of people who, “with a high level of confidence”, are or were noncitizens and have voted, some as recently as the August 2026 primary. The letter says some have voted in Washington “for over a decade” and “more than two dozen times”.
  • The attached list is described as “over 400 individuals and over 1,500 total votes”. The letter says the people “are or were noncitizens (i.e., they may have subsequently naturalized)”.
  • It asks Hobbs’s office to review the list within 24 hours and, for anyone whose ballot is or will be returned, to instruct election officials not to verify the signature or tabulate the ballot until citizenship is determined.
  • It says a second DHS list is expected before the election.
  • Deadline: implement the process by noon PST, 28 October, or “the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief.”

The letter says the request is separate from the Civil Rights Division’s demand for Washington’s voter rolls and related litigation.

Hobbs’s response

In a statement the same day, the Secretary of State’s office said it is reviewing the request to ensure any response complies with state and federal law. Hobbs said: “We take our responsibility to protect voter information seriously and will only respond to requests that follow due process. We saw what happened in California and don’t want Washingtonians to be harassed.” The office says the system DOJ uses “frequently flags legitimate U.S. citizens as noncitizens”, that one of the roughly 400 records dates from 1994, and that federal law limits removing voters within 90 days of a federal election. It also called the timing, a week before the election, an attempt “to cast unfounded suspicion on the results”.

The list of the identified individuals is attached to this letter and is comprised of over 400 individuals and over 1,500 total votes. — U.S. Attorney’s Office letter to Secretary Hobbs, 26 October 2026

Contested points

Both sides’ claims are contested and untested in court. The letter itself concedes that some people on the list may since have become citizens. No charges were announced with the letter, and we have not seen the list. In California, the Ninth Circuit on 26 October dismissed DOJ’s emergency appeal over a similar 20,000-name list for lack of jurisdiction, sending it back to the district court.

Citizen impact: If Washington complies, ballots from 400-plus named voters would sit uncounted until citizenship is checked, which protects citizens’ votes from dilution if the list is right and delays or risks the votes of citizens if it is wrong. If it doesn’t, DOJ says it will go to court within days of the election.

What this piece refuses

We do not write that “400 noncitizens voted”: the letter says “are or were” noncitizens and the list has not been tested. We do not name the acting U.S. Attorney, whose signature block is illegible on the copy we read. An Epoch Times post quoted an acting U.S. Attorney saying the list is “only the tip of the iceberg”; that line is not in the letter we read, so we do not use it.

Bottom line

Hold-the-ballots request to Washington with a 28 October noon PST deadline; Hobbs says he will follow due process and protect voter data. Next step is likely court.