The Department of Justice asked Washington state Monday to set aside ballots from more than 400 people it identified as noncitizens registered to vote illegally.

Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd for the Western District of Washington and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pete Serrano for the Eastern District sent a letter to Secretary of State Steve Hobbs requesting that any ballots from the flagged individuals be sequestered until their citizenship can be confirmed. The DOJ said the group had cast about 1,500 votes in prior elections.

"We have identified over 400 non-citizens who are registered to vote and have voted in multiple elections," Floyd said in a news release. He described the findings as the tip of the iceberg and said agents had questioned noncitizen detainees and border crossers, then cross-referenced responses with immigration databases and public voter records.

Washington, which mails ballots to all registered voters, has more than 5 million people on its rolls. Noncitizens are barred from voting in federal elections under U.S. law.

The request follows a similar move by the Trump administration in California less than two weeks earlier. Hobbs said his office is reviewing the list and noted that one record dates to 1994. He criticized the timing, one week before the general election, as intended to cast suspicion on results.

The effort reflects the administration's broader push to verify voter eligibility and deter illegal voting by noncitizens. Federal officials have pursued comparable reviews in other states and have emphasized that even legal permanent residents remain ineligible to cast ballots in national contests.