Tue. Nov 26th, 2024

U.S. District Courthouse for the Southern District of Iowa in Des Moines on Nov. 1, 2024. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Federal officials confirmed at a federal court hearing Friday that there are 250 names on Iowa’s voter registry that appear to be noncitizens, but said they have not shared the identities of these individuals with state officials.

U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher heard arguments in a case brought by the ACLU on behalf of naturalized citizens and the League of United Latin American Citizens calling for Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate to rescind his guidance to county auditors to challenge ballots of registered voters listed as potential noncitizens by the state office.

The lawsuit was filed late Wednesday against the state office and five county auditors. It is challenging a list of 2,022 individuals registered to vote or who have voted who identified themselves to the state — most commonly the Department of Transportation — as noncitizens in the past 12 years. Pate announced the list in late October after early voting was underway.

Pate said in a news conference Wednesday that he directed local elections officials to challenge the qualifications of these voters because he was not able to secure information from the federal government confirming their citizenship status.

A majority of the people on this list are expected to be naturalized citizens who have the right to vote in federal elections. But some — including the 250 mentioned in court Friday by lawyers for the federal government — are understood to still not have citizenship status and are not eligible to register or vote in U.S. elections. Voting or registering to vote as a noncitizen constitutes a class D felony charge in Iowa, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of $750 to $7,500.

Earlier in the week, Pate criticized the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service for not granting Iowa access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to confirm the listed individuals’ citizenship status, and for not allowing the Des Moines USCIS office to share its completed review of all named information with the state office.

In a statement Friday, Pate said that allowing the state access to this information was vital ahead of the Nov. 5 election next week.

“… According to the federal government, there are approximately 250 noncitizens registered to vote in Iowa,” Pate stated in a news release. “Yet the federal government will not share this data with us, which is critical to ensuring only eligible U.S. citizens vote in our elections.”

Officials with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office said USCIS has been in communication with the state about the list of potential noncitizens but needed to further review the information before sharing it with the state. Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird issued a statement in support of defending the Secretary of State’s actions and the AG office’s work in court to “defend Iowa’s election integrity laws and safeguard the vote.”

“Every legal vote must count and not be canceled out by a noncitizen’s illegal vote,” Bird said. “State and federal law are clear.”

Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, told reporters following the hearing that their organization does not have more information about the 250 people brought up by federal officials, but that this information does not invalidate their challenge.

“What I can say is that, that is a much smaller number than 2,022 people who the Secretary of State has directed to challenge as being noncitizens,” Austen said. “So it’s very clear that the Secretary of State understands that this list consists primarily, or entirely, of U.S. citizens who have exactly the same fundamental core right to vote as the rest of U.S. citizen Iowa voters.”

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of four naturalized citizens, who do have the right to vote, who are on the state’s list to have their eligibility challenged in the 2024 election. Attorneys representing these citizens and LULAC argued that Pate violated the federal 90-day “quiet period” ahead of the election for removing ineligible voters from voter rolls with the directive, in addition to violating naturalized citizens constitutional rights on due process and equal protection.

Eric Wessan, solicitor general of the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, argued in court that these arguments were invalid as no one suffered “irreparable harm” from the list, as no individuals were removed from voter rolls during the process. Voters listed as potential noncitizens by the state office still have the ability to vote, but must bring proof of U.S. citizenship with them to cast a regular ballot, or cast a provisional ballot and later present documentation to the absentee and special voters’ precinct board to have their vote counted.

Locher said he aims to issue a ruling by Sunday.

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