After review, SOS claims 250 non-citizens were registered to vote in Iowa; The court hears the case

DES Moines, Iowa — Just a few days before the November 5 election, a federal judge heard arguments from ACLU of Iowa and the state whether or not to prevent election officials from challenging the more than 2,000 registered voters who appear on Iowa Secretary of State’s “Potential Noncitizen” List.

“We need this directive overturned,” said Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa. “The secretary of state has it backwards. It’s not like all of these naturalized citizen voters on this list should have their rights violated until and unless proven innocent, so it has to go the other way. The fact that the Secretary of State recognizes that this is an outdated list, made up of us citizens, the problems.

The ACLU of Iowa and its partners have alleged that Secretary of State Paul Pate is harassing naturalized citizens by making them jump through extra hoops to vote.

They called Pate’s impeachment directive a “voter purge program” and argued it violated federal law and the U.S. constitution.

“So it’s very clear that the secretary of state understands that this list consists primarily or entirely of American citizens who have exactly the same basic fundamental right to vote as the rest of Iowa’s American citizen voters,” Bettis Austen said.

Pate’s attorney argued that no one is being removed from the voter rolls, saying they can still vote provisionally before proving their right to vote, arguing it’s all in the interest of protecting Iowa’s elections.

“Every legal vote must count and not be nullified by the illegal vote of a non-citizen,” said Attorney General Bird. “State and federal laws are clear. Today, we filed our case in court to defend Iowa’s election integrity laws and protect the vote.”

Pate said he knows the list is wrong but the state argued that the 24 years of data they cross-referenced between voter rolls and Iowa DOT data is the best they have right now.

Secretary of State Paul Pate said the federal government had identified 250 non-citizens on voter rolls, but said they would not share the information.

“The bottom line: According to the federal government, there are approximately 250 non-citizens registered to vote in Iowa,” Secretary of State Pate said. “However, the federal government will not share this data with us, which is critical to ensuring that only eligible American citizens vote in our elections.”

However, the state said in court Friday that the feds would provide those names by Tuesday.

The court is asking both sides to answer a few remaining questions, and those filings must be submitted by noon Saturday. The court hopes to make a decision by Sunday.

One of the questions the judge returned to during Friday’s arguments was what information Chief Secretary of State Michael Ross was referring to in his signed statement.

He said in late summer that he “became concerned about the self-identified non-citizens that the Iowa Department of Transportation (“IDOT”) documented who may be registered to vote.”

It’s something the judge hopes the state will pursue in Saturday’s brief.