A federal judge says he will decide this weekend whether the Iowa secretary of state illegally singled out more than 2,000 Iowans for voting objections filed by election officials.

League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa and some voters are suing Pate Oct. 22 letter to Iowa’s 99 county auditorsIt orders them to challenge the citizenship of 2,176 registered voters if they vote in Tuesday’s general election. Under Iowa law, these voters can cast provisional ballots but will have to return within a week with proof of citizenship, such as a passport, for their votes to be counted.

Pate’s office identified voters based on their previous identification of themselves as noncitizens on Department of Transportation forms. In 154 cases, voters did so after having previously voted or registered to vote, he said. These cases were referred to law enforcement “for potential prosecution,” it said.

In the lawsuit filed on WednesdayLULAC argued that most people on the list, including the four named plaintiffs, were naturalized citizens who applied for a driver’s license as legal residents and then obtained citizenship, in some cases years earlier. LULAC argued that requiring these voters to cast provisional ballots based on now-outdated DOT data would violate federal election law as well as constitutional guarantees of the right to vote and equal protection.

LULAC asked the court for an injunction against Pate’s directive. Lawyers representing Pate argued the matter Friday before U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher. He asked the parties to submit additional briefings on Saturday and promised a decision would be made by the end of the weekend, just two days before election day.

How many challenged voters are not actually citizens?

Jesse Linebaugh, an attorney representing LULAC, argued that although states have the authority to investigate and remove invalid voters, they cannot do so on an unconstitutional basis, such as excluding naturalized citizens.

“This is not an individualized basis,” he said of Pate’s letter. “This is a list of 2,176 people targeted based on national origin.

Relating to: Here’s what state officials and law enforcement are doing to keep the 2024 elections safe.

It is unknown how many people on the list are actually citizens, but Johnson County officials announced Thursday evening that they had confirmed the citizenship of 63 people among the 295 people Pate instructed them to challenge. “One person has been referred to the police for further clarification and investigation into their eligibility to vote,” and the remaining voters have yet to respond to letters alerting them to the situation.

Attorney General Eric Wessan said Pate’s office deliberately narrowed its criteria to get as few false positives as possible. He also said the state consulted with U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, which said there were “hundreds” of noncitizens on Iowa’s list but has so far declined to share those names with the state. (In a press release after the hearing, Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird put the number at “approximately 250”).

Wessan said Pate is prepared to update county auditors with an updated list if USCIS provides those names before Tuesday.

“We are trying to do this with as little damage as possible,” he said.

Did Pate have the authority to send the October 22 letter?

Locher also pressed both sides on whether Pate has the authority to order county auditors to object to certain votes, noting that a section of the Iowa law Pate cited in his Oct. 22 letter does not exist.

Despite Pate’s letter, a county auditor who doesn’t believe there is “reasonable doubt” to challenge the vote is not required to do so under Iowa law, Wessan said. He also explained that if county officials have other information verifying the voter’s citizenship, they do not need to challenge the ballots.

But Linebaugh said Pate’s letter said the auditors were “directed” to object to the ballots and that new state law allowed Pate to do so. fine county auditors $10,000 due to “technical violations”. He said state auditors took Pate’s letter to recommend a mandatory mandate.

Locher asked both sides to provide additional briefings on Pate’s powers by noon Saturday. He also asked the state to explain in more detail what led officials to begin comparing voter rolls to DOT data only in the final months of the election cycle.

“There have been concerns for years about non-citizen voting, and I don’t think those concerns have been borne out on more than a very small level,” he said. “Why did (Pate’s office) decide to do anything about this only in late summer of 2024?”

What could the court do?

Locher said that even if he found Pate’s letter inappropriate, his options for addressing the issue were limited as the election approached. Not only did the U.S. Supreme Court rule that courts should be reluctant to interfere with election procedures close to the election, it also stated that there would not be time to order Pate to — for example — send notices to affected voters and receive them before Election Day.

Linebaugh asked the court for an order declaring Pate’s decision unconstitutional and told county supervisors to ignore it.

“It’s pretty simple that we don’t do this to these American citizens when they come to vote. Stop,” he said in a call with reporters after the hearing.

But Wessan told Locher that the standard for an injunction was too high for plaintiffs to overcome, especially this close to the election, and that asking voters to cast provisional ballots was the state’s least intrusive way to ensure all votes cast were valid. valid.

“We want their votes to count,” he said of LULAC plaintiffs. “If their vote is effectively canceled by a non-citizen voter, that’s not going to happen.”

Reporter Kyle Werner contributed to this report.

William Morris runs the courts of the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at [email protected] or 715-573-8166..

This article first appeared in the Des Moines Register: Iowa voters object to trial decision coming Sunday