DES MOINES, Iowa — A federal court denied an injunction against Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate's challenge of noncitizen registered voters Sunday.
Last month, Pate's office conducted an audit that showed 2,022 people self-reported that they were not citizens and voted or registered to vote. However, according to a statement from Pate the federal government previously confirmed that only 250 names on Iowa’s voter registry appeared to be non-citizens.
Pate's office provided county auditors the list of people and told them to challenge their ballots and have them cast a provisional ballot instead — as some of those individuals may have become naturalized citizens in the lapsed time.
Handed down from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, most naturalized U.S. citizens, with the exception of a few, will now be able to cast a regular ballot instead of a provisional one this upcoming election.
The ruling comes days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa filed a legal challenge on behalf of four naturalized citizens. The lawsuit alleged the state infringed upon the individuals' rights in its attempt to keep ineligible noncitizens from illegally voting.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls, even though it was impacting some U.S. citizens, based on discrepancies between voter registration records and citizenship records.
Locher 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 on Sunday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds celebrated the ruling saying it was a "victory for election integrity."
“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,” Reynolds said.
Joe Henry, state political director for the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa said this is not the outcome he had hoped for.
“We are disheartened," Henry said. "The Secretary of State should never have been allowed to do this at the very last moment. It placed a higher standard of responsibility on these naturalized citizens.”
LULAC of Iowa encourages all naturalized citizens to bring their naturalization papers or passports to the polls just in case.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said in a statement that she was happy that her clients, the four naturalized citizens, will now be able to cast regular ballots, instead of the provisional ones. However, she is still disappointed that the judge ruled the way he did.
"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. "Even the Secretary agrees that the vast majority of voters on his list are United States citizens."
Locher’s ruling added that granting an injunction could actually do more harm than good.
For example, in Johnson County, hundreds of letters have already been sent to registered voters telling them to bring proof of citizenship to their polling place. The ruling argues that demanding Pate end these efforts could ultimately cause confusion.
Pate called the ruling a win in a statement released Sunday that reads in part:
"Today’s ruling from the Federal District Court is 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. 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.
We applaud the district court for this decision. As stated in the official ruling, it is undisputed that there are a number of noncitizens who are registered to vote, and awarding the injunction would force local election officials to permit those individuals to vote.
We continue to seek clarity on the citizenship status of the individuals who have self-reported as noncitizens, and once again urge 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."