Iowa Identified 87 Self-Reported Noncitizens Who Have Already Cast Ballots In Elections
Iowa’s elections chief revealed on Tuesday that his office has identified 87 individuals who self-reported they are noncitizens after already casting ballots in elections.
“It is absolutely critical that eligible citizens are able to vote and we are not disenfranchising any eligible voters,” Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement.
According to an office press release, the 87 foreign nationals were discovered as part of a regular audit of the state’s voter rolls. The analysis also uncovered 67 self-reported noncitizens who registered to vote, but did not cast ballots in elections. The names of these individuals are being turned over “to the Iowa Attorney General and the Iowa Department of Public Safety for potential prosecution,” according to Pate.
The audit additionally found 2,022 people “who have self-reported they are not citizens and voted or registered to vote after self-reporting.” Pate Communications Director Ashley Hunt Esquivel reportedly said, as described by the left-wing Iowa Capital Dispatch, “there may be individuals in this category who have been naturalized as U.S. citizens since reporting their status to the Iowa [Department of Transportation], and legally eligible to vote.”
Pate indicated in the release that his office has provided instructions to county auditors to ensure only authorized U.S. citizens have their votes tabulated in the 2024 election. County auditors are to direct their poll workers to “challenge the ballots” cast by these individuals should they vote in the November contest. According to the secretary, these voters, whose eligibility remains in question, will only be able to cast provisional ballots.
“It is a felony for noncitizens to either vote or register to vote, and we will work with the authorities to ensure that those who break the law are prosecuted to the fullest extent,” Pate said.
Tuesday’s revelations come weeks after Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird brought charges against a noncitizen for voting in a local election earlier this year. As The Federalist’s Breccan Thies reported, Jorge Oscar Sanchez-Vasquez was charged “with two counts of election misconduct … — ‘registering to vote and illegally voting on the same day, July 16, 2024, in a special election for the Marshalltown City Council,’ as outlined in [an office] press release.”
“We will be working with both [the state’s] 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, after noting how his office had “run into roadblocks from the federal government.”
Such “roadblocks,” he indicated, have been encountered by “states across the country that are involved in lawsuits with the Department of Justice and federal government agencies.”
Earlier this month, the DOJ sued Virginia to stop the commonwealth from removing noncitizens and other ineligible registrants from the state’s voter rolls, as The Federalist reported. The lawfare came in response to actions by GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the Virginia Department of Elections to ensure only authorized U.S. citizens are on the voter registration lists during the 2024 election cycle.
Youngkin blasted the administration’s lawsuit as “a desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy of the elections in the Commonwealth,” and that the state will “defend these commonsense steps, that we are legally required to take, with every resource available to us.”
A hearing for the case is expected to take place on Thursday.
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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