DES MOINES, Iowa — Secretary of State Paul Pate released a statement Tuesday regarding an audit of noncitizen voting in Iowa showing more than 2,000 people self-reported they were not citizens and voted or registered to vote.
There are some details Pate's office has yet to clarify, but there were 2.3 million voter records inspected in his audit.
According to the audit:
- 87 people self-reported they were not citizens after they voted
- 67 people self-reported they were not citizens after they had registered to vote
- 2,022 people self-reported they were not citizens and voted or registered to vote after self-reporting
"For those groups, we have pretty clear evidence … that they voted or registered to vote when they are not citizens, which is, of course, a class D felony," said Ashley Hunt Esquivel, Pate's spokesperson, in a statement to the Associated Press.
The Secretary of State's office conducted the audit by cross checking a list from the Iowa Department of Transportation with voter registration records.
Pate says he has informed county auditors of the noncitizen voters and directed them to have their poll workers challenge the ballots of all people on the audit's list and provide them with a provisional ballot.
Local 5 reached out to Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald on this issue, and he referred back to Pate's office.
"We are not commenting on this story until we get a better understanding of the process. Please talk with the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office if you have immediate questions," Fitzgerald said.
Local 5 is working to receive some clarification on the process and numbers from the audit.
Pate's release does not define what self-reporting is, and there is also no clear indication when the review was conducted. In addition, Pate's office did not specify if the people identified in the audit voted in the most recent election, or if the numbers span across multiple years.
"These are all individuals who have voted over previous elections - we have checked them with our [voting] database, which has records as far back as 2000," Esquivel told Local 5.
Esquivel also told the AP that it's possible the noncitizens identified in the audit became naturalized citizens in the lapsed time.
"We need clarification on what their citizenship status was when they registered or voted," Esquivel said.
Local 5 is also working to confirm if all of these instances get referred to the Iowa Attorney General and if the names they have identified will be released.