Pro-voting groups seek court order barring Trump administration from demanding Washington set aside ballots

By Alexandra Hutzler

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RENTON, WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 23: An election worker wears a pin on their lanyard while opening midterm elections ballots at the King County Elections headquarters on October 23, 2026 in Renton, Washington. Workers have already begun processing ballots in Washington, which uses mail-in voting. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Pro-voting groups* filed an emergency motion to block the Trump administration from pressuring Washington state to set aside or refuse to count ballots sent to over 400 people the federal government claims may be noncitizens illegally registered to vote.

The Constitution gives states the power to administer elections, but the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to interfere with how states conduct voting. The administration has used unsubstantiated claims of thousands of noncitizens registered to vote to threaten local election workers with prosecution if they defy the administration’s demands.

“The constitutional rights of Washington voters hang in the balance. This Court must act immediately to protect Washington voters from this unlawful intrusion,” OneAmerica Votes, the Latino Community Fund of Washington and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union wrote in their request Monday for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction.

The groups sued President Donald Trump in his official capacity as well as the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over the administration’s dangerous attempt to meddle in the state’s elections with midterm voting already underway.

“Pursuant to President Trump’s campaign to ‘take over the voting,’ the U.S. Department of Justice has issued multiple demands that Washington election officials set aside hundreds of voters’ ballots based on unsubstantiated suspicions, under threat of criminal sanctions if they do not bend to the administration’s demands,” the pro-voting groups wrote in Monday’s filing.

“DOJ’s extraordinary demands have no basis in law,” they added. “The Executive Branch enjoys zero authority to superintend state voter-list maintenance, to supplant state determinations of who is qualified to vote, or to dictate whose ballot gets tossed aside.”

The Trump administration sent letters to Washington officials on Oct. 26 ordering them to segregate ballots from 405 people until their citizenship status can be confirmed, mirroring demands made to officials in California. Both states conduct their elections primarily by mail, a voting method Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence is rife with fraud.

A preliminary review by Washington election officials found the federal government’s list of alleged noncitizens includes U.S. citizens, inactive voters and people who are not currently registered to vote.

“Many States like Washington have exercised their sovereign prerogative to refuse to surrender their voter rolls to DOJ or run them through faulty databases,” the groups wrote in Monday’s filing.

“Undeterred, the federal government has continued to resort to desperate and unlawful tactics to hijack state election administration in the days before the election,” they added. “These ongoing efforts form the crux of this lawsuit.”

*The Elias Law Group (ELG) represents the plaintiffs in this case. ELG Firm Chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.