Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird, both Republicans, have filed a lawsuit against the federal government for not providing information necessary to check the citizenship status of registered Iowa voters before the Nov. 5 election. Pate had flagged 2,176 potential noncitizen voters and instructed county auditors to challenge their ballots if they tried to vote. The lawsuit accuses U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of unlawfully refusing Iowa’s requests for this information. Despite initial cooperation from a USCIS agent in Des Moines, the agency’s office in D.C. declined to release the citizenship information.
Pate’s office referred 154 individuals from the list to law enforcement for potential prosecution, as voter fraud by noncitizens is illegal in Iowa. However, critics argue that Pate’s actions may have discouraged naturalized citizens from voting and that there are better ways to verify voter eligibility without resorting to legal action.
The federal government has offered Iowa access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program for citizenship verification, but Pate and Bird claim this is not sufficient to check all registered voters’ citizenship status. They are demanding USCIS to provide the necessary information and to answer future inquiries from Iowa. The lawsuit has drawn criticism from civil liberties organizations, stating that the federal government already offers access to citizenship data and that suing is unnecessary. The DHS spokesperson emphasized that SAVE is an efficient tool for verifying citizenship status. Pate has stated that the combination of SAVE access, USCIS citizenship verification, and Social Security number verification will enhance the election integrity process.
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