Federal judge allows Iowa to continue challenging voter rolls

A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can continue to question the validity of hundreds of ballots from potential noncitizens, though critics said the directive threatens the voting rights of people who have recently become U.S. citizens.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, appointed by President Joe Biden, sided with the state in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa’s capital, Des Moines. on behalf of the League of Latin American Citizens of Iowa and four recently naturalized citizens. All four were on the state’s list of questionable records that would be challenged by local election officials.

The state attorney general, a Republican, and the secretary of government argued that investigating and potentially removing 2,000 names would prevent illegal voting by noncitizens. Republican Party officials across the United States have made the potential vote of noncitizen migrants a key point of debate in the election year, even if it is rare. Their approach has arisen in the wake of former President Donald Trump falsely suggesting that his opponents are already committing fraud to prevent his return to the White House.

In his ruling Sunday, Locher pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision issued four days earlier that allowed the state of Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls, even though it was affecting some U.S. citizens. He also cited the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on state election laws surrounding provisional ballots. Those Supreme Court decisions advise lower courts “to exercise great caution before granting last-minute injunctive relief,” he wrote.

Locher also said the state’s directive does not remove anyone from voter rolls, but instead requires some voters to use provisional ballots.

In a statement Sunday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, welcomed the ruling.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for election integrity,” Reynolds said. “In Iowa, while we encourage all citizens to vote, we will enforce the law and ensure those votes are not nullified by the illegal vote of a non-citizen.”

An ACLU spokesperson said the organization had no comment yet.

After Locher had a hearing in the ACLU lawsuit on Friday, Secretary of Government Paul Pate and state Attorney General Brenna Bird issued a statement saying Iowa had about 250 noncitizens registered to vote, but the Biden administration would not provide data on them.

Pate told reporters last month that his office was forced to turn to a list of potential noncitizens from the Iowa Department of Transportation. It included people who had registered to vote or who had voted after identifying themselves as noncitizens. who were legally living in the United States when they applied for a driver’s license.

“Today’s court victory is a guarantee to all Iowans that their votes will count and will not be nullified by illegal votes,” Bird said in the statement issued after Sunday’s decision.

But ACLU lawyers said Iowa officials were admitting that most of the people on the list are eligible to vote and should not have been included. They said the state was violating the voting rights of naturalized citizens by wrongly challenging their records and investigating them if they cast ballots.

Pate issued his directive on Oct. 22, just two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, and ACLU attorneys argued that federal law prohibits such a move so close to Election Day.

“It is very clear that the secretary of state understands that this list consists primarily or entirely of American citizens who have exactly the same fundamental and central right to vote as the rest of us Iowa citizen voters,” said Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director of the ACLU of Iowa, during a Zoom briefing for reporters after the hearing.

Individuals on the state’s list of potential noncitizens may have become naturalized citizens after filing a declaration with the Department of Transportation.

Pate’s office told county election officials to challenge their ballots and instead issue provisional ballots. That would leave the decision of whether or not to be considered up to local officials after further review, and voters would have seven days to submit proof of their U.S. citizenship.

In his ruling, Locher wrote that Pate had backed away from some of his initial hardline positions at an earlier hearing. Pate’s attorney said the secretary of government no longer aims to require local election officials to challenge the votes of every person on their list or force voters on the list to submit provisional ballots even when they have proven citizenship in a voting place.

Federal law and states already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote, and the first question on Iowa’s voter registration form asks whether a person is a U.S. citizen. The form also requires potential voters to sign a declaration saying they are citizens, warning them that if they lie, they could be convicted of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Locher’s ruling also came after a federal judge halted a similar program in Alabama challenged by civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice. Testimony from state officials in that case showed that approximately 2,000 of the more than 3,200 voters who were inactivated were actually legally registered citizens.

In the case of Iowa, non-citizens who are registered are potentially only a small fraction of the state’s 2.2 million registered voters.

But Locher wrote that it appears to be indisputable that a portion of the names on Pate’s list are registered voters who are not U.S. citizens. Even if that portion is small, a court order would effectively force local election officials to allow ineligible voters to cast ballots, he added.

Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a lengthy legal fight for months over this year’s election. Republicans have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote counting after judges repeatedly rebuked them in 2020 for filing complaints about how the election was conducted only after votes were counted. Democrats have their own team of dozens of staff who are fighting cases brought by Republicans.

Migrants obtain citizenship through a process called naturalization, which includes establishing residency, demonstrating knowledge of basic American history and institutions, and taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.

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