Judge upholds state’s guidance on challenging absentee ballots from potential non-citizens • Iowa Capital Dispatch

A total of 2,176 people were affected; 2,022 individuals identified themselves as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation or another government agency and subsequently registered to vote or participated in elections within the past 12 years. It was determined that another 154 people registered to vote or participated in the elections and later stated that they were not citizens.

Although the lawsuit lists people, including the plaintiffs represented, who are naturalized citizens and thus legally able to vote. federal authorities also identified 250 names Noncitizens appear on Iowa’s voter rolls. Voting in U.S. elections or voting as a noncitizen is a felony in Iowa, punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $750 to $7,500.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher wrote in the ruling that he would not block Pate’s guidance or require that people on the list be allowed to vote regularly because the list includes at least some people who are not U.S. citizens.

“Some of the names of the secretaries Locher wrote that Pate’s list actually consisted of registered voters who were not United States citizens. “This part looks must be relatively small—no more than twelve percent—but still, the injunctive relief sought by “Plaintiffs will effectively force local election officials to allow these individuals to vote.”

The ACLU challenged the law on several fronts, including that it violates the federal National Voter Registration Act’s 90-day “quiet period” requirement for systematic voter removals before the election. Locher agreed with the state’s arguments that this law does not violate those standards because no voters are removed from the Iowa voter rolls, only voter qualifications are challenged at the ballot box.

He also cited two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. allowing voters to be removed from Virginia voter rolls. By executive order from Governor Glenn Youngkin and to protect him Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision allow voters to surrender provisional ballots if mail ballots are found to be defective. He said those precedents “advise the Court to exercise great caution before issuing a last-minute injunction regarding how Iowa officials are handling election matters.”

Voters on the list are still on Iowa’s voter rolls and have the right to submit a regular ballot if they present proof of citizenship when voting, Locher said. Local election officials are not required to challenge every single person listed as potential non-citizens, he added.

“Similarly Pate’s attorney argued that, in accordance with the Court’s interpretation of Iowa law, the local Election officials are not required to challenge the votes of anyone on the 2,176-person list voters can instead use their own independent judgment based on available information.o Official including, but not limited to, the information in Secretary Pate’s letter,” Locher wrote.

Pate released a statement Sunday celebrating the decision as “a victory for Iowa’s election integrity.”

“U.S. elections are for U.S. citizens, and ensuring that 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 the Iowa Secretary of State requires balance; while ensuring that every eligible voter can vote, it also ensures that only eligible voters participate in Iowa elections. “These are both critical components of Iowa election integrity.”

Pate also said the office would continue to “seek clarity” on the current citizenship status of people on the list, and reiterated a request to the federal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office to allow the Des Moines field office to share information about those people. In a news release issued Thursday, Pate said the Iowa USCIS office confirmed it had completed a review of people identified as potential noncitizens, but the federal USCIS office “refused to allow the Des Moines office to 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 allow the Iowa field office to disclose to us this clarifying information that is critical to ensuring that only U.S. citizens vote in our elections.”

Other statewide Republican elected officials, including Gov. Kim Reynolds and Attorney General Brenna Bird, also praised the district court’s decision. Bird said he was “pleased to lead the fight in court to defend Iowa’s long-standing election integrity laws” and said the decision “provides a guarantee for all Iowans that their votes will be counted and not nullified by illegal votes.”

Reynolds called the decision a “victory for election integrity.”

“While we encourage all citizens to vote in Iowa, we will enforce the law and ensure that those votes are not nullified by the illegal vote of a non-citizen,” Reynolds said in a statement.

The ACLU of Iowa has not yet issued a response to the decision at the time of this article’s publication.