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00:02All right, good afternoon everybody. My name is Neil Floyd. I'm the acting in the United States
00:06attorney for the Western District of Washington. I'm joined by Pete Sorano from the Eastern District
00:11and April Miller, the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations. In my current
00:17role, I am often asked about voter fraud in Washington. In fact, as a longtime resident of
00:22Washington, I have wondered what is being done about voter fraud. Who is checking to make sure
00:29that the people registered to vote are United States citizens? Who is checking to see if
00:34non-citizens are voting in Washington? Sadly, the answer to those questions in Washington
00:40is no one. Without our help, the state of Washington does not have the capacity or the will to check
00:47if non-citizens are voting. However, under the leadership of President Trump, the Department
00:53of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are determined to root out illegal voting.
00:57Through our investigation, we have confirmed with high confidence that non-citizens are
01:03voting in the state of Washington in federal and state elections. Thus far, we have identified
01:10over 400 non-citizens who have voted in Washington. And many of them have voted multiple times.
01:17That means we have identified over 1,500 ballots illegally cast. This is not the full number of non-citizens
01:25non-citizens who have been voting in Washington. This is only the tip of the iceberg. With
01:31a small sample that we have collected so far, I am confident that we are looking at thousands
01:36of non-citizens who have been voting in Washington. Because of the limitations the state has placed
01:41on our investigation, we have only been able to uncover a fraction of the total number. Washington
01:48has refused to share a complete list of registered voters with identifying information. We are
01:54having to do this essentially one person at a time. So let me explain our methodology.
02:00DHS has obtained publicly available lists of registered voters in Washington. Those lists
02:06are compared with DHS information to identify registered voters who are not citizens. This is extremely labor-intensive
02:15sensitive and requires several layers of checks to confirm we have the right person. We then
02:21further investigate to see if that person actually cast ballots in Washington. If we had access
02:28to the full database maintained by Washington, this could be done much more efficiently. We
02:33could simply compare Washington's information to ours and it would yield immediate results. Unfortunately,
02:40Washington is fighting in court to keep us from getting access to the full database. We
02:46may never know the full extent of illegal voting in the state without access to the full database
02:50of registered voters. Today, we sent a letter to the Secretary of State and election officials
02:57in Washington with the information about the 405 individuals we have identified as non-citizens
03:04citizens who have been voted. We are asking for the states to set aside those ballots until
03:09we can confirm that they are legal voters. Now that the state is on notice, it is incumbent
03:15upon state officials to make sure they are counting only legal votes. This does not need
03:22to be a guessing game. If the state would cooperate with the Department of Justice and Federal
03:27Law Enforcement, we could easily identify illegal voters and illegal voters in the state of
03:34Washington. Finally, for those who continue to claim that there is no evidence of widespread
03:39fraud in Washington, here is my response. It is not my job to uncover widespread voter fraud.
03:46It is my job to investigate and prosecute those who commit federal crimes in the Western
03:51District of Washington. Voting by non-citizens is a crime. Knowingly assisting those who
03:58are voting illegally is a crime. The right to vote is a sacred right that belongs to each
04:04citizen of this country. No one should be allowed to take that right from you. If you
04:09are a citizen of the United States and you are eligible to vote, you should vote. Each time
04:15the state of Washington knowingly or unknowingly allows a non-citizen to vote, they are canceling
04:21out or stealing the vote of a United States citizen. If you are not a citizen of the United States
04:27and you register to vote, or you vote illegally, we will find you. We will continue to investigate
04:33and we will criminally prosecute those who vote illegally, and those who assist others
04:39in voting illegally. Ultimately, the voters of Washington will decide how much fraud is too
04:45much fraud. I will turn it over to Pete Serrano for some additional comments.
04:51Thank you Neil and thank you all for in attendance. Pete Serrano, First Assistant United States Attorney
04:57of the Eastern District of Washington. As someone who came in and having held public office for
05:02multiple years, the electoral system is near and dear to my heart. It is something I have
05:07always had my questions about, and like Neil, I get the question almost daily. What's happening?
05:13Who's voting legally? Who's voting illegally? And the answer is ultimately we, the three of
05:19us up here, do not know. As Neil said, the Department of Justice through Assistant Attorney General
05:25Army Dillon had sought voter records and ballot records last year, at the end of the year. That litigation
05:32remains ongoing. And ultimately, to Neil's point, we have a better picture of what's happening
05:38in the state of Washington if we're going to have access to that. Unfortunately, we don't.
05:43And so, enter our team at HSI, who's done a bang-up job, looking at the records that are publicly
05:49available,
05:50that are accessible to them, and comparing with people that are known to be non-citizens, compared
05:56to those who are voting. It's obviously a labor-intensive process, and again, I think those partners,
06:01HSI and anyone else supporting them, for their due diligence on this, because this really
06:07is a tremendous labor. It's a heavy lift, it's a heavy burden, and ultimately, as Neil said,
06:12when it comes to these issues, our job is to prosecute. And when there are prosecutable issues
06:19that are brought to my office in Eastern District of Washington, I can assure you that my people,
06:24my team and I, will utilize our full force and efforts. If other issues are brought to us, you know,
06:32we've had some phenomenal other issues. We've had a great drug bust, child pornography and sex rings.
06:38You know, there's a lot that's ongoing. So, while this is one of the issues that the administration
06:43has as a priority issue, and it will remain that, there are a lot of other crimes that are being
06:48prosecuted in both of our districts. And I know Neil's teams have done a better job with those
06:53high priority issues, too. Ultimately, we're here to make our community safer and better,
06:58and that's our end game of this. That's our real goal, is to make sure that, as Neil said,
07:04when you're voting, that your vote counts. On a one-for-one, not on a ratio of someone who
07:09shouldn't be voting. So, with that, I'll turn it over to April. Thank you.
07:20Good afternoon. My name is April Miller, and I am the Acting Special Agent in Charge
07:24for Homeland Security Investigations here in the Pacific Northwest. HSI is conducting
07:30a coordinated criminal investigative effort focused on allegations of voter fraud
07:35and related federal criminal violations. Voter fraud undermines public confidence in lawful
07:42voting, government processes, and the integrity of our institutions. We take these allegations
07:48seriously and investigate them within the scope of our federal criminal authorities. HSI's work
07:55focuses on identifying and investigating potential criminal conduct, including unlawful voting,
08:01fraudulent voter registration, false claims of United States citizenship, identity fraud,
08:09document fraud, immigration fraud, and related facilitation activity. HSI investigates allegations
08:16that individuals unlawfully registered to vote, unlawfully voted in federal or state elections,
08:23or used false statements, fraudulent documents, or deceptive identity information in connection
08:30with voting activity. Each matter is evaluated based on the available facts, evidence, and applicable law.
08:39To date, HSI has actioned more than 1,600 cases, resulting in more than 160 arrests.
08:47These figures reflect a substantial investigative effort to identify potential criminal violations
08:54and ensure allegations and ensure allegations are reviewed through appropriate law enforcement channels.
08:59We have identified a growing number of cases accepted for prosecution,
09:04underscoring the importance of thorough investigative work and close coordination with the Department of Justice
09:10and United States Attorney's offices. When the evidence supports prosecution, HSI coordinates with the United States Attorney's Office
09:18with jurisdiction to conduct a prosecutorial review and consider potential criminal charges.
09:25That office then makes all prosecutorial decisions. We coordinate with appropriate law enforcement and government partners
09:33to support lawful criminal investigations and identify related fraud or criminal activity.
09:40HSI's role is to identify, investigate, and support the prosecution of criminal activity that may compromise the integrity
09:49of lawful voting, identification, immigration, and government processes.
09:54Individuals charged with crimes are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
10:06All right, so I understand we're coming up an election, and two purposes for this press conference today.
10:10Number one is to let the public know that someone is looking into this.
10:13That may be a change, and I know that people often wonder if anyone's doing anything about it.
10:18We are doing something. Secondly, it's to let people know that if you're not a citizen, you're not eligible to
10:23vote.
10:24That's a point of confusion here in Washington.
10:27Ballots are sent out to thousands, millions of people, and many of them are not eligible to vote.
10:34We have done interviews. We have talked to the people that we've been able to contact so far.
10:39We will continue to do that.
10:41One of the things that we have discovered is that people are telling us,
10:44I got a ballot in the mail. I thought I was eligible to vote.
10:48If you're not a citizen of the United States, you're not eligible to vote, even if you receive a ballot
10:54in the mail.
10:54So I think it's fair to put the public on notice and to provide that warning before we go into
10:59an election season.
11:01It would have been nice if we had done it before many of the ballots had already been sent out,
11:04but this is what we are based on our investigation so far.
11:07And with that, I'll take any questions.
11:08Yeah, question for you. The databases that the federal government has used to verify citizenship of voters in the past
11:14have come under fire for flagging U.S. citizens as potential non-citizens. What is your response to that?
11:20So this is a really major point of confusion and I want to clarify.
11:25There are two sides of the ledger. One side is, is this person that we have identified not a citizen?
11:33We're the federal government. We know the answer to that question. That's not a hard one.
11:37People are looking at what is going in to decide whether or not this person is a citizen. We know.
11:42It has USCIS. We have immigration records. We know.
11:45The other side of the ledger is who is voting. And that's what we're having a hard time getting access
11:50to.
11:51So the disparity comes when we try and check and see that the name that is on the voter registration
11:56to the limited information that we have.
11:58If we had the name, the social security number, the address, all the identifying information, it would make it much
12:04easier.
12:04Well, let's say on this side of the ledger, I've got John Doe. And I know that John Doe was
12:10here legal.
12:11Well, there might be a lot of John Doe's. So the disparity is trying to marry up those two lists
12:15and make sure that the one that's on the voter registration is actually the one that we know is not
12:21a citizen.
12:21So we're 100% confident in the ones we know are a citizen. Making sure that the same ones that
12:26are on the voter registration part actually requires multiple levels of checks and checking other databases to make sure we've
12:33got the right thing.
12:34Can I explain it? Any other questions?
12:37Along those lines, can you, and so for those 405, you are confident that all 405 both voted and are
12:44not citizens?
12:45Correct. You know that for sure.
12:49We've checked their voter registration. We've spoken to many of them. And we are confident that they are the same
12:56ones that are on the voter registration.
12:58I have to allow for the fact that we don't know everything the state knows. But at this point, with
13:04the highest level of confidence I have, these are people that are registered to vote, have voted, and are not
13:10citizens.
13:12Now, in terms of proof, are they the ones that filled out the ballot? Did someone else register them? Those
13:19are all questions that we still have to answer in the future.
13:21Because many of them are telling us, yeah, I never filled out a ballot. So without full access to what
13:25Washington has, it's difficult for me to show that the person that we know is not a citizen is actually
13:30the one that filled out the ballot inside the ballot.
13:34Have you filed charges against any of these people?
13:36For the reasons I just stated, we have not. I do anticipate that we will be filing charges. But this
13:41comes into a matter of, you know, my job isn't, this is, I'm not out to punish some guy that
13:51made a mistake. That's not what we're trying to do.
13:54And, you know, that gets reported in the press that they're out just to try and discourage people from voting
14:01or punish people. Really what I'm trying to find out are the organizations, the people, the systems that set up
14:07illegal voting in the state of Washington.
14:09That may require me to go after some people individually to gather more information. And a lot of these people
14:16that we've identified have not only registered to vote and voted, but they've also made false claims by applying for
14:23legal status with USCIS.
14:27So when you apply for your naturalization, you apply for the green card, you have to fill out an attestation
14:33and you get asked, have you ever voted in the United States?
14:35And if the answer to that question is no, they may have complicated it by, again, lying to federal officials
14:41about whether they're voting.
14:42Which is another reason that I wanted to highlight this. Because there are people out there. It's not just a
14:49matter of they might accidentally or unknowingly vote illegally.
14:54It could also impact their ability to get a green card or to become a citizen. Because if you make
15:01that mistake now, once you go in for an interview, guess what?
15:05For the first time since I've been involved in immigration for, I don't know, 16, 17 years now, they're checking.
15:13So when you go to USCIS and you fill out the application to become a citizen and say, I've never
15:17voted, guess what?
15:19It's not that hard to go to votewa.gov, type in the person's name and date of birth and figure
15:26out if they actually voted in the past.
15:28The reality is, they hadn't really been doing that much. Now what?
15:33So you mentioned that HSI is publicly available lists of voters in Washington. Can you, perplexing what was the source
15:45of that?
15:45Well, one of those is the votewa.gov, that we can actually check these people individually, one at a time.
15:51The other lists that they're getting about who is registered to vote, a lot of that stuff is publicly available,
15:58and I don't know, and I'm not, if I did, I wouldn't tell you the exact list that we're looking
16:02at.
16:02But again, that's on this side of the ledger, of us trying to decipher what the state of Washington won't
16:10give us.
16:11Trying to figure out who's actually registered to vote, with some identifying information.
16:15The other side of the ledger, about whether they're citizens or not, we're 100% confident.
16:20What happens if the Secretary of State's office doesn't think about it as their best in their study?
16:26So, the time limit is what we would like to see.
16:29I will tell you that the first purpose of us putting them on notice is now it is incumbent upon
16:37the state to take action.
16:38At this point, we sit back and watch.
16:40I mean, if the state is doing what they say they do in all the press releases and trying to
16:45ensure fair and safe and accurate elections, they'll take some action.
16:51If they don't, then we will continue to provide the notice of those individuals that are non-citizens.
16:57And ultimately, we may have to take additional action.
17:01But I don't know if that would be a system.
17:03Some of my house would be a subpoena for 60 different voters' information.
17:08Is that related to this method?
17:11I'm not going to comment about any legal processes or subpoenas that we're doing because we're prohibited from discussing certain
17:18materials
17:18that may be related to grand jury or other.
17:21But I will tell you that if it requires legal process for us to get the information that we need
17:28for, just like in any criminal case,
17:31any time we're doing an investigation, we'll use whatever legal process we have available to gather the information.
17:49So, you know, I'm not going to, I can't state, I can't state for certain why.
17:55I can tell you that some of the things that we typically run into would be this giant shield that
18:02everyone in the state uses called the Keep Washington Working Act,
18:05where they claim that they're not allowed to share any information that could be used for immigration purposes.
18:10Rest assured, this is not for immigration purposes.
18:12This is trying to ensure accurate and safe, free elections.
18:19Trying to make sure that legal votes are the ones that are counted.
18:23But invariably, when you call any state official and say,
18:26we would like you to give us some information so we can check to see if these people are citizens
18:31so they can vote,
18:32it's always the Keep Washington Working Act that they use.
18:36And by the way, that was originally designed to be, we're not going to use resources,
18:40we're not going to use manpower to help and assist with immigration enforcement.
18:46Now it's being used to basically stick your head in the sand for anything that has a word beginning with
18:52I,
18:53so they can shield themselves from any responsibility.
18:56If they're going to say they have fair and free elections, then they need to follow through on it and
19:02not use that as a shield.
19:03And by the way, we're not offering to do anything other than help them.
19:08We want to give them our information.
19:11We want to be able to make sure that what we're giving them is accurate.
19:15Let's share information.
19:17Let's get to this common goal together.
19:21But if they're not willing to do that, then we have to do it on our own.
19:23The 400, for how many years, how many elections can you do that?
19:28Seconds.
19:29Some of them have voted dozens of times, some of them only once.
19:34But by the time you add up, and frankly, I got tired of counting how many actual votes it adds
19:41up,
19:41but we have essentially a spreadsheet that says it's over 1,500 votes that are cast.
19:47Now, when I say that, I think that's actual balance.
19:49If you count how many people they voted for on that ballot, I can't even contemplate how many votes that
19:56would be.
19:56So what comes next?
19:59What percentage of the total voter rolls has HSI been able to go through to get these 400,
20:05so we can get some sense of sort of how big the problem is?
20:09Like how much have you reviewed, and what comes next?
20:12So it depends on where we're getting the source initially.
20:15I can tell you initially a lot of this information came from exactly what I explained.
20:19People applying with USCIS to get some other benefit.
20:23We flagged it because somebody checked.
20:27As has been widely reported, they have interviewed some people crossing the border because they have information.
20:33There's also, you know, any time we encounter someone, now they're starting to check on immigration enforcement.
20:41Excuse me, on voter registration and voting.
20:44So, for example, someone gets arrested and detained down in Tacoma.
20:50They might be checking down there to see if that person's ever been registered to vote.
20:53So what we're looking at is a very tiny population of people that we have made contact with recently.
21:02As we expand to that population, we're going to get exponentially more people.
21:09And to be clear, we haven't even touched the people that we're not contacted.
21:14The people that are here illegally that we don't know about, they just crossed the border.
21:18If they haven't ever made contact with law enforcement in the past few months, then we haven't even checked those
21:25in.
21:25Much less, it would be easier if we had the entire voter roll and it was accurate and we checked
21:31their list against our information.
21:34Right now, what we're doing is we're taking our information and trying to see if it's on their list.
21:40And that's a very difficult process.
21:42If the DOJ, HSI, are you taking note of how these potential one citizens are voting? Are they typically voting
21:49blue?
21:49No, absolutely not. And first of all, I don't have access to the information and I don't care.
21:54I mean, how they vote is immaterial to me. Whether they vote and whether they deprive a United States citizen
22:00of their right to vote isn't good to me.
22:03I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. That was an easy one to do.
22:07Can I ask something on a little bit different note?
22:11Steve Hobbs said that there's a CISA briefing on cybersecurity for overseas threats hadn't happened yet.
22:19This was on Thursday when he was interviewed.
22:21He said that your Homeland Security was trying to offer that. Do you comment on that?
22:26You don't have to. I mean, we're trying to keep this on topic today.
22:29And I don't want to hear anything that she wasn't prepared for today.
22:32So I don't actually really answer the question.
22:36I'm not familiar with the comments that he made.
22:38And I want to become familiar with that as with April before I start to comment on Steve Hobbs.
22:43You noted how close we are to the election here.
22:48This has been made pretty clear in the California case before the Ninth Circuit, changing processes to try to sequester
22:59these ballots this late in the game.
23:02According, you know, in the case of California, they're saying that could cause catastrophic effects on actual citizen voters,
23:12people who are properly registered who could have their ballots held or not counted or just cause other sort of
23:21chaos in the system.
23:22I mean, why don't we think that would be the case here?
23:30So why don't I think that this would cause disruption among the current system?
23:33Yeah.
23:34First of all, although it's a lot, $405 is not $20,000.
23:39Secondly, it's because I constantly hear reporting, although they have not spoken to me,
23:47that if someone is not allowed to vote when they receive the ballot, they filter those out.
23:53The state is already claiming to have the capacity to filter out people that are not eligible to vote before
24:00the votes are counted.
24:01All we're doing is ask them just to add this to your wrist.
24:03And by the way, we're not saying don't count the votes.
24:05We're just saying this is the information we have.
24:09And if I were not the acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington,
24:16and I were you, an average citizen, and I said I have a list of 405 people that I know
24:22are here,
24:23they're not citizens, and I know they voted, or I suspect they voted.
24:28And you gave that in as a tip.
24:30Wouldn't you expect that the state would do something about that?
24:34So when it's coming from the actual officials who have the actual information,
24:39the fact that they're sticking their head in the sand and refusing to do anything about it is,
24:45first of all, let me say, they haven't officially done that yet.
24:47But if they were to do that, that would be offensive.
24:51This letter mentions, you know, the legal obligations that county elections are under,
24:56and also the chair of your office, does make criminal referrals to state counterparts.
25:01Is it possible that the whole county election knows that could be some attorneys
25:06if they process some of the names on this list?
25:08I'm not going to speculate about what happened with any particular individuals.
25:11What I can tell you is what the law says.
25:13It is illegal under Section 611 for non-citizens to vote.
25:18Anyone that assists someone in voting illegally would be also guilty of that crime
25:23under the A to the event period, just like any other crime.
25:26So if you conspire, if you made an event, someone else in committing a crime,
25:31then you could be guilty of the crimes of your law as well.
25:35And I guess what I want to say about this is the most frustrating part,
25:40and the one thing that I want the public to know,
25:42is that the system that we have right now is set up to make this extremely difficult,
25:51if not impossible, for there to be any enforcement with respect to illegal voting in the state of Washington.
25:57They send out the ballots to people. They say they're checking.
26:01I don't know what they're doing to check, so maybe this is the test to see if they're checking,
26:06because we provided them credible information that these people are not eligible to vote.
26:11And then on the back end, let's say that we know someone voted illegally.
26:16Proving it in a court of law becomes extremely difficult,
26:20because you have to rely on, you know, what someone is telling you.
26:24You have to get handwriting analysis, perhaps, in order to be able to make sure that the signature is verified,
26:30or just the blind nature of the system makes it very difficult to do.
26:36And by the way, this state has very little incentive to do anything about it,
26:42because even if I were to prove that those 405 people voted illegally, those votes were counted.
26:50And once they're counted, you can't unring that bell.
26:54So the more information we can give them in advance of an election,
26:57the more we have the opportunity to stop it before it happens.
27:01Are you also checking other potential illegal voting, like double voting or deceased person, stuff like that?
27:09We're getting there. And yes, that is my goal and my hope, and that's the other thing.
27:13I, you know, I spoke to someone earlier today and said, you know,
27:17we're only looking at one category of illegal voting at this point.
27:20But multiple voting, people that frankly have passed away in their voting,
27:26those are all categories we'd like to get to.
27:28And everybody in this room and watching on TV knows that they have,
27:32they have someone close to them, a family member who has received a ballot,
27:38or you've received a ballot for a relative that's moved out of the state,
27:41someone that's died.
27:43I'll share an example.
27:45My mom, bless her heart, love her to death.
27:48She now has severe memory issues.
27:51She's got dementia.
27:52She lives in an assisted living facility here in Washington.
27:55My stepfather received a copy of her ballot.
28:00And, you know, in spite of serving, you know, in the state Senate and the House of Representatives here,
28:05she still gets a ballot and she's not going to be able to vote. Ever.
28:10She doesn't have the capacity to be able to vote anymore.
28:13She's nonverbal.
28:14So, he called the State Elections Office and said, what can I do to get her taken off the list?
28:20And, you know, continue to receive ballots and perhaps it fall into her own hands.
28:24The response from the state was, we are legally prohibited from removing someone from the state election rolls
28:32unless that person calls and provides information that they have transferred, that they want to be taken off.
28:38Well, my mom's not going to do that.
28:40Or they provide a death certificate.
28:44So, how many years are we going to continue to get a ballot for her after she died?
28:48How many years am I going to continue to get a ballot now and just hope that someone doesn't intercept
28:52it in the mail and fill it out for her?
28:54We live in a state where people are dropping ballots into dumpsters and we're reading press reports about it.
28:59We've got to start somewhere.
29:01This is where we're starting because this is the most reliable information we have
29:05and we're hoping to work and cooperate with the state so that we can make better elections here in Washington.
29:10Will there be any HSI agents out during election day or checking in?
29:18So, federal law enforcement are out all the time.
29:22But, you know, checking someone to see if they're eligible to vote, no, that's not going to happen.
29:27I mean, but they, I mean, no.
29:30Can you talk about DOJ election observers that were announced?
29:33Is that being run through your office?
29:34So, every election has happened so far.
29:38Not just this one.
29:40DOJ has always sent out monitors just to try and keep an eye on election to see if there's anything
29:45they can do to improve the system
29:47or to answer questions, to help with cooperation, and this is no exception.
29:54This year there will be several election monitors that are set out.
29:58In fact, I think he is one of them and maybe going out.
30:02Will that be law enforcement or can you give us an idea of who those individuals are going to be?
30:05DOJ employees, but it's not one of them.
30:09Okay. Thank you very much.
30:10Thank you, guys.