Elections in the United States

Federal prosecutors asked Washington election officials to set aside ballots from roughly 405 voters they suspect registered without citizenship, accounting for about 1,500 cast ballots, and said more names may follow before Election Day. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs confirmed his office is reviewing the demand, which follows about 60 federal subpoenas for voter records over the past month. Hobbs has called the DOJ's data "deeply flawed," noting citizens appear on the list and most flagged voters are unregistered or inactive, and says withholding ballots without individualized proof would likely be unlawful. No charges have been filed.

A similar, larger fight is underway in California, where a federal judge rejected a DOJ demand to sequester roughly 20,000 disputed ballots but appointed a special master to vet the list, which both sides agree includes citizens. The DOJ has since subpoenaed California election officials and appealed to the 9th Circuit. Alaska has faced comparable demands.

Santa Clara County rejected a DOJ demand for data on 902 voters it suspects are noncitizens and to set aside their ballots, calling it unlawful and infeasible before Election Day; San Mateo and Contra Costa counties raised similar objections, noting the DOJ letters carry no court order. The dispute escalated after a federal judge and a 9th Circuit panel both rejected a related Trump administration effort to block roughly 20,000 California ballots statewide, calling the claims about noncitizen voters not credible and the intervention unconstitutional. The DOJ has appealed again. Gov. Newsom says California is deploying election attorneys to monitor DOJ observers at polling sites.

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has repeated his assertion that Israel is "not actually our friend," making the case in interviews with ABC News and MS NOW ahead of his final debate against Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed argues Israel has lobbied the U.S. into conflicts, including pushing for action against Iran, and accused the Israeli military of war crimes. He has also faced criticism for deflecting questions about alleged family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and past appearances with controversial streamer Hasan Piker. At the debate in Detroit, El-Sayed also opposed the SAVE America Act's voter ID and citizenship-proof requirements, calling them voter suppression, while Rogers defended the measure as reasonable. The race remains competitive ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The Department of Justice escalated its dispute with California over a list of voters flagged as possible noncitizens, filing an emergency lawsuit Oct. 15 in federal court in the Central District of California after state officials missed a roughly 48-hour deadline set by Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter to review the names. DOJ had sent Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder Dean Logan and Secretary of State Shirley Weber a password-protected thumb drive naming more than 20,000 "likely noncitizens," identified through a multiagency USCIS and Homeland Security Investigations review of state voter and federal citizenship data. The 15-page complaint accuses California of violating the Constitution's supremacy clause by knowingly sending and counting mail ballots from likely noncitizens, and asks the court to order the state to set aside such ballots until citizenship is verified. Attorney General Todd Blanche called the alleged practice "state-facilitated voter fraud."

Logan's office declined to open the drive, citing data privacy protocols, while Weber argued federal officials provided insufficient evidence. Governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuit a "sad, desperate attempt" by President Trump to suppress California voters weeks before Election Day. The suit is the administration's first direct attempt to block vote-counting, following a broader push including a blocked citizenship-verification mandate, a mail-voting executive order partly struck down by the Supreme Court, and roughly 30 similar voter-roll suits against other states with limited success. Senate Democrats have demanded oversight briefings on the administration's election-interference efforts.

Colorado's U.S. Senate contest pits Democratic incumbent John Hickenlooper, seeking a second term after a career as Denver mayor and governor, against Republican state Sen. Mark Baisley of Woodland Park. Baisley campaigns on fiscal restraint, government accountability, property tax reform and expanding first-time homebuyer access, drawing on his aerospace engineering background and work on tech and defense issues in the legislature. Hickenlooper points to his record capping insulin costs, expanding Medicare drug price negotiation, and opposing Trump administration policies on public lands, tariffs, and healthcare cuts, while emphasizing water and healthcare expertise from his time as governor.

Colorado has trended Democratic in recent federal elections, though Republicans have won statewide Senate races before — Cory Gardner held the seat until Hickenlooper unseated him in 2020. With Democrats and Republicans nearly even in active voter registration and unaffiliated voters forming the largest bloc, the race is being watched as a test of whether Republicans can flip a statewide seat amid broader national political headwinds.

Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, have asked California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate a whistleblower's allegations that a DHS unit improperly accessed the state's voter registration data. The disclosure claims USCIS's Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate was assigned an "unlawful voter initiative" using questionable data and methods to flag purported unlawful voters, potentially including U.S. citizens who could face law enforcement records based on rushed reviews. Personnel were reportedly held to quotas of 40 subjects a day and told to misrepresent themselves to access the data, with the effort aimed at completion by September 12.

Padilla and Schiff argue the initiative appears designed to find or manufacture evidence for voter fraud claims ahead of the 2026 midterms, warning of serious consequences for naturalized citizens wrongly flagged. They previously urged DHS and USCIS leadership to halt the effort. A DHS spokesperson defended the practice, saying the department cross-referenced publicly available voter rolls with known aliens in its systems. The Trump administration has separately pursued voter data from other states, with a federal judge earlier dismissing a related DOJ suit against California as "unprecedented and illegal."

Georgia officials are pointing to the state's voter citizenship verification system as a national model, citing 15 years of development that combines REAL ID driver's license data, jury duty citizenship affidavits, and the federal SAVE database to check voter eligibility. About 98% of Georgia's registered voters hold a REAL ID, with citizenship documentation reviewed at issuance and records updated hourly with the secretary of state's office. The state has also defended its verification procedures in court, including against challenges from Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight Action.

Georgia has run its full voter file through SAVE, though a recent court injunction has blocked an expanded version of that federal system. The state has been ranked favorably by groups including the Heritage Foundation, the Center for Election Innovation & Research, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and R Street. Post-2022 survey data cited shows high voter confidence in the state's election process, as officials argue verification and ballot access can coexist.

California and a coalition of other states have filed a new lawsuit against President Trump's executive order restricting mail-in voting, after the Supreme Court allowed the administration to proceed with planning but withheld a ruling on constitutionality since specific regulations had not yet been issued. Those rules have now been detailed, prompting the fresh legal challenge. The order directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of eligible voters and instructs the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to those listed, raising concerns about disenfranchisement ahead of the midterms.

In Sacramento, state lawmakers advanced a bill making it a felony for officials, including postmasters, to withhold ballot delivery under such federal directives. Legal scholars note the measure is unlikely to result in prosecutions of federal officials due to constitutional supremacy and immunity issues. Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed mail voting enables widespread fraud, despite voting by mail himself in Florida elections. The dispute underscores a broader partisan battle over election administration heading into the 2026 midterms.