The Winneshiek County Auditor is raising concerns about Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s order to challenge the ballots of over two-thousand Iowans flagged as potential non-citizens.
Winneshiek County Auditor Benjamin Steines, in a written statement, said it is “important that only U.S. citizens are allowed to vote,” but he questions the “timing” of Pate’s order, which was issued two weeks before Election Day, after early voting had begun. Last month, Steines notified a Loras College professor who became a U.S. citizen last year that his absentee ballot was being challenged because he was a suspected non-citizen on Pate’s list. Steines, who’s being sued along with Pate for that interaction, said Pate’s order has created “extra burdens for naturalized citizens as well as Election Staff.”
This afternoon, a federal judge heard arguments in the lawsuit that alleges Pate’s order is violating the rights of Iowans who have recently become U.S. citizens. The driver’s license data Pate used indicates at some point in the past two decades over two-thousand people who are on Iowa’s list of registered voters told the DOT they were legal residents, but not citizens of the United States.
(Reporting by Darin Svenson, KDEC, Decorah)