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Iowa elections officials sue 4 naturalized citizens who say their right to vote was violated

Iowa elections officials sue 4 naturalized citizens who say their right to vote was violated

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Four voters and a Hispanic civil rights group are suing Iowa’s top election official after he allegedly directed election workers appeal ballot papers people who may be naturalized citizens, alleging that the state violated their rights by trying to keep noncitizens from voting illegally.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa filed the lawsuit in federal court Wednesday night on behalf of four people who Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate has labeled as registered voters who may not be citizens. They are naturalized citizens, the complaint states.

Last week, Pate’s office said it provided county auditors with a list of 2,022 people who told the state Department of Transportation they were not citizens but later registered to vote or voted. Because those individuals could have become naturalized citizens at a later date, Pate’s office ordered county election officials to contest their ballots and force them to vote provisionally instead.

They will have seven days — one more than usual because of a federal holiday — to provide proof of their citizenship so their ballots are counted.

One new voter registered last year, one day after he became a U.S. citizen, according to the complaint.

“However, he was placed on the secretary’s secret list and improperly subjected to investigation and election challenges for following the law and exercising his right to vote,” the complaint states.

The ACLU also represents the Iowa League of United Hispanic Citizens.

Non-US citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections, but there is no evidence that it occurs in significant numbers, although Iowa and some other states have reported dozens of such cases.

Before filing the lawsuit, Pate told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that the DOT list was “the only list we have” without access to federal immigration records.

“We are balancing this process. We want everyone to be able to vote. Therefore, no one was excluded from the voter lists,” he said. But “we are obliged to make sure that they are now citizens.”

With early voting underway and the Nov. 5 election just days away, the lawsuit seeks to void the list and not challenge voters on that basis. It alleges that Iowa’s election authorities burden the right to vote and discriminate against naturalized citizens by treating those voters differently than others, in violation of their constitutional right to equal protection.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd said in a statement Wednesday, ahead of the ACLU’s lawsuit, that the U.S. Department of Justice “has been calling the state in an attempt to get Iowa to allow non-citizens to vote.”

“Every legal vote should be counted and not be canceled due to illegal voting,” she said. “In Iowa, we will defend our election integrity laws and protect the vote.”

In an email, a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

The Associated Press sent emails to Pate and Byrd Thursday seeking comment on the ACLU’s lawsuit.

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Pate sought to distinguish Iowa from other states such as Virginia, where more than 1,600 voters have been removed from voter rolls in the past two months under a program enacted Aug. 7 by executive order from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Earlier in October, the Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued Virginia, alleging that state election officials violated federal law 90-day period of silence before elections.

Law on the State Register of Voters requires a quiet period so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls due to bureaucratic or last-minute errors that cannot be quickly corrected.

US Supreme Court the conservative majority said Wednesday that Virginia could proceedoverturning a federal judge’s ruling that the state’s purge was illegal. A federal appeals court previously allowed the judge’s order to stand.

In a similar lawsuit in Alabama, a federal judge this month ordered the state restore the right to vote to more than 3,200 voters who were declared ineligible to vote. Testimony by state officials in the case showed that approximately 2,000 of the 3,251 voters who were deregistered were actually legally registered citizens.