A lawsuit aims to prevent an Iowa voter citizenship challenge

Cedar Rapids, Iowa – Days before the election, the ACLU filed a lawsuit to prevent the Secretary of State of Iowa from contesting the citizenship of over 2,200 voters.

About 2,200 voters, some of whom had already cast ballots, self-identified as non-citizens, according to an audit, according to Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate. According to Pate, he searched for noncitizens who had cast ballots using data from the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Nevertheless, a number of County Auditors stated that the names the Secretary of State provided were legitimate U.S. citizens within a few days of that statement.

The action, which names the Secretary of State, County Auditors, and election commissioners in Polk, Johnson, Scott, Pottawattamie, and Winneshiek Counties, is filed on behalf of a number of registered voters who are on the list. It asserts that Pate “knows better” and that the inclusion of primarily lawful U.S. citizens seeking to vote on Pate’s list is “fatally flawed.” It asserts that the list amounts to voter intimidation and exposes voters to unwelcome law enforcement investigations.

It provides a number of examples, such as Winneshiek County resident Dr. Orcun Selcuk, who registered to vote on November 7, 2023, the day he became a citizen of the United States. He is listed on the Secretary of State’s list, according to the lawsuit, and was “wrongfully subjected to investigation and an election challenge for following the law and exercising his right to vote.”

According to the lawsuit, people who might not even be on the list are intimidated by the list and start to doubt their eligibility to vote. Among them is Polk County resident Tingting Zehn, who asserts that neither the County Auditor nor the Secretary of State will disclose whether she is on the list of challenged voters.

Although Pate has defended his list of voter complaints, he has recognized that the list could not be entirely accurate due to federal law’s limitations.

Some of them may have obtained citizenship as a result of completing the form due to the timing of driver’s licenses. It’s really annoying. “Very annoying,” he remarked.

He went on to say that conspiracy theories and concerns about election integrity made him feel compelled to examine voter citizenship.