Sixteen federal prosecutors sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on Friday, urging him to withdraw a recent memo about post-voting election irregularities.

The memo, which was sent to U.S. attorneys on Monday, authorized them “to pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions.”

In their letter, an image of which was revealed to the Washington Post, the sixteen prosecutors, who serve as district election officers, noted that they had seen no evidence of the kind of fraud that the Attorney General was highlighting. They wrote that “the policy change was not based in fact,” and that they feared the memo would “thrust career prosecutors into partisan politics.”

Responding to the letter, Department of Justice (DoJ) spokesperson Kerri Kupec pointed to a section of Barr’s memo that concludes, “Nothing here should be taken as any indication that the Department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election.”

Also on Friday twenty-three state attorneys general sent a letter to Barr expressing “deep concerns” over his November 9 memo. They wrote that they were alarmed by the “reversal of long-standing DOJ policy” against such preemptive investigations because of the danger that “the investigation itself may become a factor in the election.” The letter concluded by affirming the results of the recent election and urging the Attorney General to “respect the will of the people” and to do nothing to “undermine confidence in the electoral process.”