KDSN RADIO News
LULAC of Iowa seeks state’s list of potential non-citizens on voter rolls
The League of United Latin American Citizens is asking Iowa’s secretary of state for his list of 2022 people who’ve registered to vote, but will be required to cast provisional ballots. Secretary of State Paul Pate said yesterday that his office has not confirmed if the people on that list may have become U.S. citizens since the 2012 election.
“We need to connect with these people to make sure that they know their rights,” Joe Henry, LULAC’s Iowa political director, said. “We will be reaching out to the county election offices to request the information on these people if we can’t get it from the secretary of state.”
Henry said many or all of these people Pate has flagged on Iowa voter registration lists may have been legal residents when they got an Iowa driver’s license, but have become U.S. citizens in the past 12 years. “We know that 5% of Iowa, the population, is composed of immigrants, some of which are U.S. citizens who are looking forward to voting,” Henry said. “…This fear mongering…with now less than two weeks left before the election will cause a certain amount of chaos.”
Henry said by forcing up to 2022 people to cast provisional ballots, their votes will not be counted unless they return to their county auditor’s office after the election with proof that they’re a citizen. “This could have an impact on a lot of elections — congressional elections where as we know sometimes those elections are determined by less than a dozen votes and then statehouse races,” Henry said. “2000+ people matters.”
Pate’s announcement on Tuesday indicated he has referred the names of 154 people to Iowa’s attorney general for a citizenship check to see if they were not U.S. citizens when they registered to vote over the past 12 years. Pate said 87 of them had voted in one of the last six elections.
