The Department of Homeland Security has reportedly ordered a surge in efforts to investigate voter fraud in Washington state as part of a multistate probe before the midterm election.

The probe, first reported by CNN, is a further escalation of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on instances of voting by noncitizens and other ineligible voters — despite evidence such cases are vanishingly rare.

State officials criticized the effort, which they say they were not informed about in advance. Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said he only learned of the new surge via the CNN report.

“Unfortunately, this is not the first time we have learned about federal actions through the media. It’s troubling that Homeland Security is wasting taxpayer dollars investigating a phenomenon we know to be false,” Hobbs said in a statement, pointing to just a handful of verified vote fraud cases in Washington since 2008, out of 90 million ballots cast.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said he had no more information about the new federal actions and expressed doubt they’ll turn up anything of substance.

“We have no reason to believe this is a legitimate inquiry by DHS. Washington state’s elections are secure thanks to the work of state and local leaders across the ideological spectrum,” Brown said in a statement.

The new DHS efforts are expected to ramp up in nine states this week and continue into mid-October, CNN reported, citing internal federal guidance. Besides Washington, the surge is targeting Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New York and Connecticut.

In those states, DHS is launching a “coordinated criminal voter fraud surge initiative to pursue investigative leads, conduct field interviews, and support timely prosecutorial review,” the guidance states, according to CNN.

In a statement Tuesday to The Seattle Times, a DHS spokesperson said that while the department is unable to comment on active investigations, the administration “is actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found.”

“We have repeatedly demonstrated that illegal aliens can and do vote in our elections. Under President Trump, (Homeland Security) is committed to restoring integrity to our election systems and ensuring that American citizens and only American citizens are electing American leaders,” the spokesperson said.

Trump has repeatedly made false and unsubstantiated claims about elections, particularly the 2020 presidential race that he lost. He recently asserted that a Census Bureau report looking at 128 million voters was proof that more than 24,000 noncitizens voted in the 2020 election.

Even that small number was disputed by experts, who said the methodology in the report was flawed and likely produced many false positives, according to The Associated Press.

The new vote-fraud prosecution surge by the Trump administration lines up with its aggressive efforts to deport noncitizens.

The New York Times reported last month the administration is making “an intense push to identify and deport noncitizens who registered to vote, even if they did so inadvertently or never cast ballots — an unusually aggressive approach that is helping it promote baseless claims that voter fraud is rampant.”

In the statement Tuesday, the DHS spokesperson said the government is “laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote” to prevent “the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens.”

“Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation,” the spokesperson said.