News : Iowa Secretary of State says 87 noncitizens voted in elections

By Robin Opsahl

The Iowa Secretary of State's office says it has found 87 noncitizens who voted in the state's elections, as well as 67 noncitizens who have registered to vote but have not yet cast a ballot.

Secretary of State Paul Pate reported Tuesday the office found these instances through an auditing process of voter registration lists. The people who are not citizens and participated in the state's election process "self-reported" as non-citizens after voting or registering to vote, Pate said in a news release.

Noncitizens voting or registering to vote is a felony charge in Iowa as a class D felony. First-degree election misconduct charges can be punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of $750 to $7,500.

Pate said the office is working with authorities to "ensure that those who break the law are prosecuted to the fullest extent." While the identities of the individuals who participated in elections illegally were not publicly released, Pate said their names were given to the Iowa Attorney General's Office and the Iowa Department of Public Safety for potential prosecution.

In September, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, a Republican, charged a 42-year-old Marshalltown resident with allegedly voting in a July special election for the Marshalltown City Council. The man was a legal resident of the U.S. but not a citizen.

Bird said in a statement to the Iowa Capital Dispatch that the AG's office was committed to ensuring "only legal votes are counted and eligible voters are registered."

"My office is committed to upholding election integrity and takes seriously all cases of election misconduct," Bird said. "Especially as Iowans head to the polls, we must ensure that no Iowan's vote is canceled out by someone else's illegal vote."

The Secretary of State's office also said another 2,022 people self-reported that they did not hold U.S. citizenship, who went on to vote or register to vote. Ashley Hunt Esquivel, communications director for the office, said these are people who identified themselves as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation through processes like obtaining or renewing a driver's license who later registered to vote.

While this group of individuals could also be subject to felony charges if they are not U.S. citizens, there may be individuals in this category who have been naturalized as U.S. citizens since reporting their status to the Iowa DOT, and legally eligible to vote, Esquivel said.

County auditors will receive a list from the Secretary of State's office of the 2,022 individuals who are noncitizens or potentially noncitizens, she said, and voting precincts will receive lists of potential noncitizens in their precincts. Poll workers are supposed to then challenge these ballots if the person comes in to vote, Esquivel said, at which point the person will be able to cast a provisional ballot.

People whose voter qualifications have been challenged, as well as people who cannot prove on Election Day they are qualified to vote, have the ability to cast provisional ballots.

Voters who cast provisional ballots can provide evidence proving they are eligible to vote to precinct election officials or their local county auditor's office within a timeframe specified on the provisional ballot envelope, according to the Secretary of State's website. The absentee and special voters' precinct board will review voters' registration record and evidence provided, and decide whether the ballot can be counted.

"From there, they have six days to cure that ballot, which means they need to provide some sort of proof of their citizenship to the absentee board, and then if they can do that, then their vote will still be counted," Esquivel said. "So the idea here is that we can make sure that anyone who is eligible to vote is still able to do that."

If a person's ballot is rejected, the individual will receive a letter explaining the decision.

According to the release, Pate said the office has run into "roadblocks" with the federal government, pointing to lawsuits in other states over removing noncitizens from voter rolls too close to the election. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Virginia earlier in October for removing voters under an executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin within the 90-day "quiet period" required under the federal National Voter Registration Act. The lawsuit also states that some eligible voters were wrongfully labeled as noncitizens and had their voter registration canceled.

No one has been removed from Iowa's voter rolls in this process, Esquivel said. She also said that the office is seeking clarification for what processes are available to taking further action on noncitizens participating in elections or being registered to vote, but that these efforts may not begin until after the 2024 general election.

Pate said he plans to work on both the state and federal level to ensure noncitizen voting can be more easily identified and prevented in the future.

"We will be working with both our Attorney General and Iowa's Congressional Delegation to ensure the federal government gives us the tools to know with certainty before a noncitizen is able to register and vote in Iowa elections," Pate said. "Instead of identifying noncitizens after they have voted, we will work with the Iowa legislature to strengthen our laws."

Noncitizen voting has been a high-profile issue ahead of the 2024 election, with former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee and other Republican leaders claiming Democrats are encouraging recent migrants to illegally participate in U.S. elections.

Pate said in an "Iowa Press" interview in September that his office was working to ensure only eligible voters are participating in the state's elections, but also said that the state has not seen major issues with the subject.

"Our role is to make sure only eligible voters vote," Pate said. "Even one, two, five, a hundred - whatever the number might be is not acceptable. So, we'll keep trying to make sure we're protecting and keeping that away. I don't believe in Iowa we have any of those types of massive voter fraud."