6 Iowans thus far charged for voting without U.S. citizenship, Iowa AG’s Office says

DES MOINES — Six individuals thus far have been charged with violating state election laws after attempting to vote or registering to vote in recent elections without full U.S. citizenship, according to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.

The charges are the first that resulted from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s effort in the 2024 elections to prevent Iowans without full U.S. citizenship from voting illegally.

The six individuals charged are among the 277 who Pate’s office in March determined either voted or registered to vote in recent elections.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which in Iowa has exclusive authority to prosecute alleged state election law violations, filed the charges. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is investigating the cases, the AG’s Office said.

“DCI is currently investigating all 2024 cases of election fraud related to the list of noncitizens the Secretary of State’s office compiled,” the AG’s Office said in an emailed statement to The Gazette. “As of today, the office of the Attorney General has filed charges in six of those cases. As always, charges are not convictions and people are innocent until proven guilty.”

The six individuals charged are from five counties: two from Johnson County and one each from Sioux, Marshall, Palo Alto and Hancock counties.

Of the six individuals who have been charged, court records for only two can be found on the state’s online court filing database. Emmanuel Gathua of Johnson County and Roque Ramirez Vasquez of Hancock County both have been charged with first-degree election misconduct. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Election misconduct in the first degree is a Class D felony in Iowa, punishable by up to five years in jail and a fine between $1,025 and $10,245.

The other four individuals charged are Itzel Lopez of Johnson County, Jorge Sanchez-Vasquez of Marshall County, Ahumada Geronimo of Palo Alto County, and Jose Lozano Munoz of Sioux County.

In the months before the November 2024 election, Pate sought to compile more accurate and up-to-date information on Iowa voters to ensure those without full U.S. citizenship do not vote illegally. Pate, a Republican, asked the federal government for a list of Iowa citizens without full U.S. citizenship; the federal government, under Democratic former President Joe Biden, denied the request, and Pate’s office sued.

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Pate instead created his own list by cross-checking voter registration information with citizenship information submitted by Iowans to the state Department of Transportation. Shortly before the election, Pate distributed to local elections officials a list of more than 2,000 names of Iowans whose citizenship his office was unable to confirm.

Because Pate’s office was only unsure of whether the individuals were full U.S. citizens, and could not prove they were ineligible to vote, Pate instructed local officials to have poll workers challenge the ballots of any individual on the list who attempted to vote. They were to cast provisional ballots, after which they would have a week to provide documentation of their citizenship.

The Secretary of State’s Office does not know how many total ballots were challenged during the elections, and the office is not releasing county-level data while the investigation is ongoing, a spokeswoman said.

In March, after being allowed to access the federal citizenship information by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, Pate announced that his office determined 277 individuals without full U.S. citizenship have illegally voted or registered to vote in recent elections.

Of those 277, 35 cast ballots that were counted in the 2024 election and another five cast ballots that were rejected, according to Pate’s office. Another 22 individuals without citizenship registered to vote in 2024 but did not vote.

Nearly 1.7 million votes were cast in the 2024 general election in Iowa, according to state data.

“What we faced at the time was a very uncomfortable situation where we knew there was a problem, and we knew we had to have some kind of a plan, and call it a sense of duty, if you want, we knew we had to take some kind of a step,” Pate told The Gazette recently when announcing his re-election bid. “And it was frustrating. And I don’t like to pass the buck, but the reality is the Biden White House would not share a very crucial list of people who are here in the United States as noncitizens with us, so that we could cross check it against our voter registration list.”

During the 2025 legislative session, Republican state lawmakers passed a new law, supported by Pate, that allows the Iowa Secretary of State to use state and federal documentation to determine the U.S. citizenship status of Iowans on the state’s voter registration list and create a new voter registration status of “unconfirmed” for individuals whose citizenship the state cannot verify.

‘What happened was not fraud, it was bureaucracy’

Nick Salazar, the state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens in Iowa, or LULAC, criticized Pate’s directive to challenge the ballots of suspected individuals without U.S. citizenship in the 2024 election.

Salazar, in an emailed statement to The Gazette, said nearly all of the individuals on Pate’s list of 2,000-plus voters were lawfully naturalized citizens whose status had not been updated with the Iowa DOT. Salazar said other Iowans were confused by what he called “complicated processes,” and that they did not have access to bilingual materials or assistance.

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“The issue of noncitizens voting in Iowa has been overblown and politicized to create unnecessary fear in immigrant and Latino communities in Iowa,” Salazar said in an emailed statement to The Gazette. “While we absolutely believe elections should be secure, facts only show that a tiny fraction of ballots were cast by noncitizens in 2024.

“What happened was not fraud, it was bureaucracy. It was a system failure due to outdated or mismatched data between state and federal systems. That’s on the system, not the people.”

Salazar said Iowa does not need more voting restrictions, but rather more education and language access.

“Truth is, Iowa already has one of the most restrictive voting systems in the country,” Salazar said. “Not more fear, scapegoating, and barriers.”

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

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