Ruling: Iowa Can Question Noncitizens on Voter Rolls

A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can continue challenging the validity of hundreds of ballots from potential noncitizens. Can you believe this even has to go through the courts?

U.S. 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 naturalized citizens. The four were on the state’s list of questionable registrations to be challenged by local elections officials.

In his Sunday ruling, Locher pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision four days prior that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls even though it impacted some U.S. 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.

The ACLU threw up a straw man, saying that naturalized citizens might get caught up in the purge despite a purge is not on the table.

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