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Hannah Fingerhut
Associated Press
Published:
Hannah Fingerhut
Associated Press
DES MOINES, Iowa – A review of Iowa’s voter rolls found 35 people who are not U.S. citizens were among more than 1.6 million Iowa voters who cast ballots in the 2024 general election, despite them being ineligible to vote.
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said Thursday that his office also identified 277 noncitizens who were registered to vote, a small percentage of the nearly 2.3 million registered voters.
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Voting by people who are not U.S. citizens is illegal in federal elections, and there is not evidence that it is occurring in large numbers. State reviews, like Iowa’s, show it is rare for noncitizens to register to vote and even rarer that they actually cast a ballot.
Pate has regularly reminded Iowans that the state’s laws protect the integrity of the elections but that even one instance of a noncitizen voting illegally is too many. The office will refer the new information to the state Department of Public Safety and the Attorney General for further investigation and potential prosecution.
The new numbers are also a fraction of the original number — 2,176 — that Pate’s office identified last year, just two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, after comparing the state’s voter rolls to a list of people who self-reported as noncitizens to the Iowa Department of Transportation. Pate’s office said that was the DOT information was the best source available to them at the time because they did not have access to federal immigration records, which they do now.
Four voters and a Hispanic civil rights group sued Pate at the time, alleging he infringed upon their rights when he directed election workers to challenge their ballots and hoping the court would block that. A federal judge allowed Iowa to continue.
Last October, the vast majority of the more than 2,000 individuals Pate’s office identified had told the DOT that they are not citizens but subsequently registered to vote or voted. Because they may have become naturalized citizens in the lapsed time, Pate’s office told county elections officials to challenge their ballots and have them cast a provisional ballot instead.
Voters had a specific amount of time to “cure” provisional ballots, in this case by providing proof that they are naturalized citizens. The review also found five noncitizens that cast a ballot that was ultimately rejected by county review boards.
The issue of noncitizens voting was highlighted by Republican candidates and lawmakers nationally, and former President Donald Trump has repeatedly suggested without evidence that Democrats are encouraging illegal migration to the U.S. so they could register the newcomers to vote.
Iowa’s voter registration form asks whether a person is a U.S. citizen and requires potential voters to sign a statement saying they are citizens, warning them that if they lie, they can be convicted of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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