Pate proposes bill to purge noncitizens from Iowa’s voter rolls

DES MOINES — The state’s top elections official seeks a law permitting his office to contract with state, federal and private agencies to ensure all registered voters in Iowa are U.S. citizens under legislation advancing at the Iowa Capitol.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate introduced the legislation, which was advanced Thursday by Republican lawmakers in the Iowa Senate. Pate, a Republican, seeks more effective ways to ensure no one on Iowa’s voter registration rolls are ineligible because they are not naturalized U.S. citizens.

“This bill, particularly, is a way for us to be more on the front end, to make sure that on the voter registration side that we make sure we do our due diligence,” Pate said during a subcommittee hearing. “It allows us to better partner with other agencies to have the most accurate list we can.”

Pate’s proposed bill would allow his office to contract with federal, state and private agencies to obtain information they possess that would help the state remove non-naturalized U.S. citizens from its voter registration lists.

The legislation, Senate Study Bill 1088, would require an Iowa voter registration to be canceled if individuals submit documentation to the state or federal government that says they are not a U.S. citizen. The bill also would allow election poll workers to ask about the citizenship status of any individual whose voter registration is being challenged.

Shortly before the November 2024 general election, Pate sought information from the federal government and learned there are just over 200 individuals registered to vote in Iowa who are not naturalized U.S. citizens.

But the federal government, citing privacy laws, declined to share more specific information with Pate that would have identified those people. Instead, Pate cross-checked state voter registration information with citizenship information contained in Iowa Department of Transportation records. That narrowed Pate’s list to just more than 2,000 individuals whose citizenship his office could not confirm.

Local elections workers were instructed to challenge the ballot of any individual who appeared on that list and attempted to vote. Those individuals were to cast a provisional ballot; they then had a week to show proof that they were eligible voters.

Critics of the directive — including those who filed a lawsuit, which was dismissed by a federal judge — said it could force some eligible voters to take extra steps to vote and could cause some eligible voters to hesitate.

Pate told reporters Thursday that his office is working to verify the number of voters impacted by the directive.

“Part of this bill is to do all of this work up front,” Pate told reporters after the hearing. “We don’t want to be causing people issues at the polling site, either. So let’s do it on the voter registration side.”

Pate’s bill also would require the state transportation department to share with Pate’s office a list of people who have indicated on department records they are not a U.S. citizen and would require an Iowans’ voter registration status to be marked “unconfirmed” if an individual gives conflicting citizenship status. An individual whose voter registration is “unconfirmed” can return to “active” if the person provides to elections officials proof of their eligibility.

Sen. Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport and member of the subcommittee, declined to support the proposal. She expressed reservations about the process of identifying noncitizens on the state’s voter registration lists and said Iowans already go through a process when they register to vote to prove they are U.S. citizens.

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When registering to vote in Iowa, individuals are asked on a form to check a box confirming they are a U.S. citizen, but they are not required to provide documentation of it. And Iowans without full U.S. citizenship can obtain an Iowa driver’s license, which is used to provide proof of identity when registering to vote.

Lying about citizenship on the form is perjury, punishable by a fine of up to $10,245 and up to five years in jail.

The bill “leads the public to believe that that question (of citizenship) hasn’t been answered numerous times when they become a registered voter,” Winckler told reporters.

The subcommittee’s two Republicans, Sens. Ken Rozenboom, of Pella, and Jeff Reichman, of Montrose, advanced the bill, which is now eligible for consideration by the full Senate State Government Committee.

“Any lack of integrity in this voter roll needs to be eliminated,” Reichman said during the hearing.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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