Voting precinct at First Christian Church in Perry. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey)
A federal judge on Sunday upheld the Iowa Secretary of State’s guidance to challenge the ballots of more than 2,000 Iowans listed as potential noncitizens leading into the Nov. 5 election.
The ACLU brought a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of naturalized citizens and the League of United Latin American Citizens. It sought to block Pate’s move in late October to have county auditors challenge the ballots of registered voters listed as potential noncitizens by the state office.
The four naturalized citizens in the lawsuit are individuals who learned they are on the list as potential noncitizens and required to cast a provisional ballot, or show additional proof of their U.S. citizenship before casting a regular ballot at the polls.
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A total of 2,176 people were affected — 2,022 who identified themselves to the Iowa Department of Transportation or another state entity as noncitizens and later went on to register to vote or participated in elections in the past 12 years. An additional 154 people were identified as having registered to vote or participated in elections and later went on to identify themselves as noncitizens.
Though there are listed individuals — including the plaintiffs represented in the lawsuit — who are naturalized citizens and thus able to legally vote, federal officials also identified 250 names on Iowa’s voter registry who appear to be noncitizens. Registering to vote or voting as a noncitizen in U.S. elections is a felony in Iowa, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of $750 to $7,500.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher wrote in the decision that he would not block Pate’s guidance, or require listed individuals to be allowed to cast regular ballots, because there are at least some individuals on the list who are not U.S. citizens.
“It appears to be undisputed that some portion of the names on Secretary Pate’s list are indeed registered voters who are not United States citizens,” Locher wrote. “This portion appears to be relatively small — no more than twelve percent — but, still, the injunctive relief requested by Plaintiffs effectively would force local election officials to permit those individuals to vote.”
The ACLU challenged the law on multiple fronts, including that the law violated the federal National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period” requirement on systematic voter removals ahead of the election. Locher agreed with the state’s arguments that this law was not in violation of these standards as no voters were removed from Iowa voter rolls, only have their voter qualifications challenged at the polls.
He also referenced two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in recent days allowing removal of voters from Virginia’s voter rolls by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order as well as upholding the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to allow voters to submit provisional ballots if their mail ballots were found defective. He said these precedents counsel “the Court to act with great caution before awarding last-minute injunctive relief into how Iowa officials handle election issues.”
Locher noted that listed voters still appear on Iowa’s voter rolls and are eligible to submit regular ballots if they provide proof of citizenship when casting their ballot. He added that local election officials are not necessarily required to challenge each of the individuals listed as potential noncitizens.
“Similarly, Pate’s counsel indicated — consistent with the Court’s interpretation of Iowa law — that local election officials are not per se required to challenge the votes of any person on the list of 2,176 voters and instead may exercise their own independent judgment based on information available to the official, which would include, but not be limited to, the information in Secretary Pate’s letter,” Locher wrote.
Pate released a statement Sunday celebrating the ruling as a “win for Iowa’s election integrity.”
“U.S. elections are for U.S. citizens, and ensuring only eligible voters participate in Iowa’s election process is essential to protecting the integrity of the vote,” Pate said in the statement. “The role of Iowa Secretary of State requires balance – ensuring that on one hand, every eligible voter is able to cast their ballot while also ensuring that only eligible voters participate in Iowa elections. Both of these are critical components to Iowa election integrity.”
Pate also noted that the office will continue to “seek clarity” on the current citizenship status of those on the list, reiterating his request to the federal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office to allow its Des Moines field office to share information on these individuals. In a Thursday news release, Pate said the Iowa USCIS office confirmed it had completed a review of the people identified as potential noncitizens, but that the federal USCIS office “is refusing to let the Des Moines office share those results with us.”
The secretary of state repeated his call Sunday for “the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Washington D.C. to permit the Iowa field office to release this clarifying information to us which is critical to ensuring only U.S. citizens vote in our elections.”
Other Republican statewide elected officials, including Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, also praised the district court decision. Bird said she was “glad to lead the fight in court to defend Iowa’s long-standing election integrity laws,” and said the ruling “is a guarantee for all Iowans that their votes will count and not be canceled out by illegal votes.”
Reynolds called the ruling “victory for election integrity.”
The ACLU of Iowa has not yet released a response to the decision by the time of this article’s publishing.
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