Federal judge lets Iowa continue to challenge voter rolls, even though naturalized citizens could be affected

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can continue to challenge the validity of hundreds of would-be non-citizen ballots, although critics said the effort jeopardized the voting rights of people who recently became U.S. citizens .

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

The state's Republican attorney general and secretary of state argued that the investigation and possible removal of 2,000 names from the list would prevent illegal voting by noncitizens. GOP officials across the U.S. have allowed noncitizen immigrants to vote an important topic of conversation in an election year although it is rare. Their focus is on former President Donald Trump falsely suggest that his opponents are already committing fraud to prevent his return to the White House.

In his ruling on Sunday, Locher pointed out a The U.S. Supreme Court's decision four days earlier allowed Virginia to continue a similar purge of its voter rolls, even though some U.S. citizens were affected. He also noted the Supreme Court's recent refusal to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on state election laws related to provisional ballots. These Supreme Court decisions advise lower courts “to proceed with great caution before granting a last-minute injunction,” he wrote.

Locher also said the state's efforts do not remove anyone from voter rolls, but rather require some voters to use provisional ballots.

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

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

Rita Bettis Austen, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, said some voters could be disenfranchised as a result of the ruling and Secretary of State Paul Pate's order.

“We are obviously disappointed with the court's decision not to block Minister Pate's directive outright, as we still fear that it will result in eligible voters being disenfranchised simply because they are people in the have become citizens in recent years,” Austen said in a written statement. “Even the secretary agrees that the vast majority of voters on his list are U.S. citizens.”

Still, Austen said the lawsuit forced Pate to refrain from forcing everyone on the list to vote provisionally. County auditors could allow a voter on the list to cast a regular ballot if they deemed it appropriate, and voters could provide documentation to prove they were citizens, she added.

After Locher had a hearing in the ACLU lawsuit on Friday, Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird issued a statement saying that about 250 non-citizens were registered to vote in Iowa, but the Biden administration did not provide data on that she would provide.

Pate told reporters last month that his office was forced to rely on a list of potential noncitizens from the Iowa Department of Transportation. It named people who had registered to vote or voted after identifying themselves as non-citizens living legally in the U.S. when applying for a driver's license.

“Today’s court victory is a guarantee for 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 acknowledged that most of the people on the list were eligible to vote and should not have been included. They said the state is violating naturalized citizens' right to vote by improperly requesting their registrations and investigating them if they vote.

Pate issued his instructions On October 22, just two weeks before the November 5 election, ACLU lawyers argued that federal law prohibits such a move so close to Election Day.

Those on the state's list of potential noncitizens may have become naturalized citizens based on their disclosures to the Department of Transportation. Pate's office asked county election officials to challenge her ballots and let her cast provisional ballots instead. That would leave the decision on whether they would be counted among local officials to further review, with voters having seven days to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship.

In his ruling, Locher wrote that Pate had backed away from some of his original hard-line positions at a previous court hearing. Pate's attorney said the secretary of state is no longer seeking to require local election officials to challenge the votes of every person on his list or to force voters on the list to submit provisional ballots even if they have proven their citizenship at a polling place.

Federal and state law already prohibits noncitizens from voting, and the first question on the voter registration form in Iowa is whether a person is a U.S. citizen. The form also requires potential voters to sign a statement certifying that they are citizens and warning them that if they lie, they could be convicted of a felony punishable by up to five years in prison can.

Locher's verdict also came later A federal judge had stopped a similar program in Alabama that has been challenged by civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice. Testimony from state officials in the case showed that about 2,000 of the more than 3,200 voters who were inactivated were actually legally registered citizens.

In Iowa's case, registered non-citizens may represent only a tiny fraction of the state's 2.2 million registered voters.

But Locher wrote that it appears to be undisputed that some of the names on Pate's list are registered voters who are not U.S. citizens. Even if that proportion is small, an injunction would effectively force local election officials to allow ineligible voters to cast ballots, he added.

Democrats and Republicans were involved an escalating legal dispute I've been thinking about this year's election for months. Republicans have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging various aspects of voting after they were repeatedly reprimanded by judges in 2020 for filing complaints about how the election was conducted only after votes were counted. Democrats have their own team of dozens of staffers fighting Republican cases.

Immigrants 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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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas, and Goldberg reported from Minneapolis.