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A federal judge has ruled that Iowa can continue challenging the validity of hundreds of ballots from potential non-citizens even though critics said the effort threatens the voting rights of people who’ve recently become US citizens.
US District Judge Stephen Locher, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sided with the state in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in the Iowa capital of Des Moines on behalf of the League of Latin American Citizens of Iowa and four recently naturalised citizens. The four were on the state’s list of questionable registrations to be challenged by local elections officials.
Campaign signs are displayed in the window of the Washington County Republican Party in Washington, Iowa.Credit: Nick Rohlman/The Gazette via AP
The state’s Republican attorney-general and secretary of state argued that investigating and potentially removing 2000 names from the list would prevent illegal voting by non-citizens. GOP officials across the US have made possible voting by non-citizen immigrants a key election-year talking point even though it is rare. Their focus has come with former president Donald Trump falsely suggesting that his opponents already are committing fraud to prevent his return to the White House.
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In his ruling, Locher pointed to a US Supreme Court decision four days prior that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls even though it was impacting some US citizens. He also cited the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on state electoral laws surrounding provisional ballots. Those Supreme Court decisions advise lower courts to “act with great caution before awarding last-minute injunctive relief”, he wrote.
Locher also said the state’s effort does not remove anyone from the voter rolls, but rather requires some voters to use provisional ballots.
In a statement, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, celebrated 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 aren’t cancelled out by the illegal vote of a non-citizen.”
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Rita Bettis Austen, legal director for the ACLU of Iowa, said some voters could be disenfranchised due to the ruling and Secretary of State Paul Pate’s directive.
“We are obviously disappointed with the court’s decision not to outright block Secretary Pate’s directive, which we still fear threatens to disenfranchise eligible voters simply because they are people who became citizens in the past several years,” Austen said in a written statement. “Even the Secretary agrees that the vast majority of voters on his list are United States citizens.”
Immigrants gain citizenship through a process called naturalisation, which includes establishing residency, proving knowledge of basic American history and institutions as well as taking an oath of allegiance to the United States.
AP