Iowa settles lawsuit over voter citizenship list before 2024 election
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa's top election official and a group of voters the state had flagged as potential noncitizens just ahead of the 2024 presidential election settled a federal lawsuit Wednesday that will prevent the state from relying exclusively on driver's license records for citizenship data in the three months before an election.
Several naturalized U.S. citizens initially sued Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate in late October 2024, alleging he infringed on their rights to vote when he directed election workers to challenge ballots from about 2,000 registered voters in an attempt to prevent people officials identified as possible noncitizens from voting. All five individuals were eligible to vote but had been included on the list.
A review of Iowa's voter rolls last year found a fraction of that number — 35 people who are not U.S. citizens — were among more than 1.6 million Iowa voters who cast ballot in the 2024 election, and there were 277 noncitizens registered to vote out of nearly 2.3 million. Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens is illegal in federal elections, and there is no evidence it occurs in large numbers.
Pate's office had compared the state's voter rolls to a list of people who at some point self-reported as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation, acknowledging that some may have since become naturalized citizens who would be eligible to vote. It then sent the list to county election officials two weeks before the election but did not attempt to contact the voters directly.
https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-voter-citizenship-lawsuit-settlement/70320965
