A federal judge ruled that Iowa election workers can continue to challenge the ballots of more than 2,000 Iowans identified on a flawed list of potential noncitizens, rejecting a request to force counties to allow those people to vote normally.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, ordered county auditors on Oct. 22 to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who had previously informed the Iowa Department of Transportation that they were not U.S. citizens, the Register reported. from Des Moines.

Any voter facing a challenge must submit a provisional ballot, which will only be counted if they can present proof of citizenship by Nov. 12.

A coalition of naturalized citizens and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa sued, arguing that Pate’s directive to county auditors unfairly required naturalized citizens (who are eligible to vote) to jump through additional hurdles in order to cast their ballots. , simply because they had obtained a driver’s license before becoming citizens.

In a decision issued Sunday, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher noted that both sides appear to agree that a portion of the people on the list are not U.S. citizens, the outlet reported. Locher, a former federal prosecutor, was appointed by Biden.

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“This portion appears to be relatively small, no more than 12%, but even so, the injunction sought by plaintiffs would effectively compel local election officials to allow those people to vote,” Locher wrote. “Whatever concerns plaintiffs may have about the nature and timing of Secretary Pate’s letter, it would be inappropriate for the court to respond by granting injunctive relief that would effectively force local election officials to allow ineligible voters to vote. ”.

The outlet noted that it is a serious crime for a non-citizen to vote in Iowa.

In a statement, Pate called the decision “a victory for Iowa’s election integrity.”

“American elections are for American citizens, and ensuring that only eligible voters participate in Iowa’s electoral process is essential to protecting the integrity of the vote,” he said. “The role of the Iowa Secretary of State requires balance: ensuring that, on the one hand, all eligible voters can cast their ballots and, at the same time, ensuring that only eligible voters participate in Iowa elections. Both are critical components for Iowa election integrity.”

Locher said recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on voter rolls and provisional ballots in other states “advise the Court to proceed with great caution before granting last-minute injunctions over how Iowa officials handle the ballots.” electoral matters.”

In Virginia, the nation’s highest court allowed the state to remove 1,600 voters from its rolls due to discrepancies between their voter registration records and other state records after the Biden-Harris Justice Department sued the state to force officials to leave noncitizens on voter rolls. .

Locher described the Virginia case as “a more aggressive version of what Secretary Pate is doing here,” and noted that Pate has not ordered any Iowa voters removed from the voter rolls, the Des Moines outlet reported. .

By granting an injunction in the Hawkeye State, Locher wrote, “this court would be ignoring how the Supreme Court handled a situation in which the plaintiffs had an even stronger legal argument than the plaintiffs have here. The court cannot do this.”

While Pate initially ordered county auditors to challenge the ballots of all individuals on the list, he later indicated that voters who can prove their citizenship at the polls or whose citizenship has been verified by the county auditor should be allow casting a regular vote.

“The auditor has freedom,” he said. “If they already know the answer, then there’s no point in questioning it.”