Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is defending his recent decision to instruct poll workers to challenge more than 2,000 potential voters at the polls because they may be noncitizens, even though he acknowledged some have become naturalized citizens and are eligible to vote.

Last week, Pate, a Republican, sent a letter to Iowa’s 99 county auditors that 2,022 people previously reported to the Iowa Department of Transportation that they were not citizens and then subsequently registered to vote or cast a ballot.

Pate instructed auditors to use the challenge process laid out under Iowa law to require those potential voters to prove their citizenship or to cast a provisional ballot.

County auditors have since identified several people on the list as naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote.

Pate said Wednesday at a news conference in Johnston that he’s not telling people on the list that they can’t vote, but, “We have questions. We need to get them answered.”

“That is why none of them have been taken off the voter rolls,” he said. “But we do owe an obligation to make sure that they are citizens now. That’s why we’ve asked the county auditors, through the poll workers, to challenge those votes, to allow them to confirm their citizenship status, so that we can count their vote as well.”

Civil rights groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, called Pate’s announcement “politically motivated” and said it could discourage members of the Latino community and other immigrants who are naturalized citizens from voting.

It is a felony in Iowa for noncitizens to vote or to register to vote. Experts say cases of noncitizen voting are rare.

Which Iowa voters might be challenged at the polls?

Pate’s office identified the list of potential noncitizens by cross-checking a database of self-reported noncitizens from the Iowa DOT with the state’s voter registration system, I-Voters.

Iowa law allows a poll worker — or any registered voter — to challenge a voter as unqualified if they are not a citizen, they are not old enough to vote, they do not live in the precinct where they are voting or they do not meet Iowa’s other requirements to vote.

If they do not have proof of citizenship, the voter will be challenged and told they can cast a provisional ballot, which is reviewed by the county’s Absentee and Special Voters Precinct Board, made up of poll workers, after the election is over.

If a voter casts a provisional ballot, it will not be counted unless he or she can provide proof of citizenship to the board by Nov. 12.

Pate’s office has not released the list of potential noncitizens it has identified, and the Secretary of State’s Office has not informed the people on the list that they will be challenged if they attempt to cast a ballot in Iowa.

Pate said Wednesday his office has not reached out to the people on the list out of concern that doing so could create a sense of intimidation.

“We want to make sure that folks come experience their opportunity to vote and allow us to try to sort out those details,” he said.

Pate said if a voter can prove their citizenship at the polls, or the county auditor has verified they are a citizen, they should be allowed to cast a regular ballot.

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

Pottawattamie County Auditor Melvyn Houser said Monday the county received 31 names of potential noncitizens from the Secretary of State’s Office.

His staff knew one individual on the list who recently brought in citizenship papers and registered to vote, but the Iowa DOT still flagged the person because she had gotten her driver’s license as a noncitizen. Because she has now provided proof of citizenship, Houser said staff made a note that she doesn’t need to show citizenship papers again to cast a ballot.

“We haven’t done any investigations into any of them other than that one,” Houser said.

In addition to the 2,022 people who told the DOT they were noncitizens and then later registered to vote or voted, Pate also identified 154 people who told the Iowa DOT they were not citizens after they had already voted or registered to vote.

Pate’s office has also forwarded those 154 names to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and the Iowa Department of Public Safety for potential prosecution.

Pate says federal database would help determine whether voters are citizens

Pate expressed frustration Wednesday that his office does not have access to a federal database called SAVE, or Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, which he said would provide more up-to-date citizenship information.

“I’m very confident that there aren’t 2,000,” Pate said. “But sadly, we are forced to have to work with the information we have available, because the federal government has tied my hands, and we cannot do a redo on an election.”

SAVE is administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and provides information on immigration status, including whether someone has become a naturalized citizen. Its website says 1,200 agencies around the country use the service to help determine status such as eligibility for health care benefits, Social Security, driver’s licenses and more.

“We repeatedly put requests out to the folks in Washington, D.C. to have a complete list of those folks who are legally here and are noncitizens,” Pate said. “And to this date, they have not been cooperative and giving us that list.”

A fact sheet on SAVE’s website lays out the process for states to receive access.

“State election officials must complete a SAVE Memorandum of Agreement with USCIS that identifies the legal authorities, processes and requirements for verification of naturalized and acquired U.S. citizenship for voter registration, voter list maintenance, or both,” the fact sheet states.

Aside from checking registered voters against the database that the DOT recently provided, Pate said his office cross-checks names in Iowa’s voter registration database with the state’s jury lists. Only citizens are allowed to serve on juries.

Amid criticism of timing, Pate says audit provides ‘full transparency’

Pate has come under fire for the timing of the audit, which became public just days before the 2024 general election.

Ashley Hunt Esquivel, a spokesperson for Pate, said the office has come under immense pressure from the public and others to ensure that only citizens are voting and the election process runs smoothly.

Pate said this effort addresses the public’s need for transparency and accountability.

“The reason we sent it to counties now is because we feel the public expects us to address the issue,” he said. “Because we’ve had so much pressure put on the elections process across the country about not only noncitizens, but anything that’s not got full transparency in an election, and this is the closest we can come to providing that transparency at this time.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds told reporters Wednesday after an appearance at the Westside Conservative Club that although she didn’t ask Pate to conduct the investigation, she did inquire what he was doing to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting.

“I asked him what we were doing a while back, just because I was hearing other states were looking into it,” she said. “And you know, one of the things that we’ve done with our election process is, every couple of years we’ve really focused on election integrity. So I think as a Legislature, we have continuously tried to make sure that we were upholding the integrity of the election. So I was just curious, you know, to make sure how that was playing out and what we were doing.”

She also expressed frustration with the state’s inability access the SAVE database.

“If we want to uphold the integrity of the election process, that’s what they need to do,” she said.

Across the country, Republicans have fixated on the question of whether noncitizens are illegally casting ballots in elections and have taken steps to purge their voter rolls.

The efforts come as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump seeks another term in office and lays the groundwork to question November’s election results. The former president has made debunked claims that he lost the 2020 election because noncitizens were voting in Arizona, and he has claimed without evidence that his opponents are pushing noncitizens to vote.

“Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote,” he said during the Sept. 10 presidential debate.

But noncitizen voting is rare, studies and audits have shown.

A Brennan Center for Justice analysis of 42 voting jurisdictions from the 2016 election found that officials only referred 30 suspected cases of noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million cast.

Democrat criticizes Pate for knowingly using outdated data

Pate acknowledged Wednesday that the data his office used to produce the list was outdated.

“We’ve always been aware that it’s not 100%,” he told reporters. “That is why we keep asking the federal government over and over and over for access to the master national list of those individuals here that are not citizens.”

State Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, criticized Pate for relying on a database that he knew would ensnare recently naturalized citizens.

“I think it’s certainly important to make sure that noncitizens aren’t voting in our election,” he said. “But this stunt two weeks out from the election, with data that they knew was incomplete, or at least their office has known is incomplete and has flaws — it’s just pure politics. And we know Iowans are sick and tired of that.”

Zabner said he’s especially critical because he recently worked with the Secretary of State’s office on a project that addressed a similar issue.

In 2022, a North Liberty resident who had been recently naturalized told Zabner he was unable to register to vote through an online form on the Department of Transportation website. The website told him that “records on file with the Department of Transportation indicate that you do not meet the requirements to register to vote at this time.”

Zabner followed up with the Secretary of State’s office in an email dated Sept. 29, 2022, which he shared with the Des Moines Register.

“I’m writing to inform you about a potential flaw in the Iowa Electronic Voter Registration System,” Zabner wrote. “I am concerned that the online system may not work for new citizens who obtained their driver’s licenses before becoming citizens.”

Zabner shared additional emails documenting that Pate’s office acknowledged the problem and worked to add a new warning to its website.

That warning, which is now active on the DOT’s voter registration portal, alerts naturalized citizens who previously submitted information to the DOT before their naturalization ceremony that they could face roadblocks to registering to vote.

“My parents became citizens in 2004,” Zabner said. “They’re immigrants to this country. I know how much they value their right to vote as people who worked really hard to become citizens. And so I think it’s really sad to see the Secretary of State playing politics with people’s voting rights.”

In a statement responding to Zabner’s concerns, the Secretary of State’s Office acknowledged the need for better databases.

“We have run into roadblocks from the federal government in verifying the list and clarifying the individuals’ citizenship status,” Hunt Esquivel said in an email. “We will continue to request the list and update and audit our lists as we receive clarifying information.”

Pate repeatedly reiterated throughout his Wednesday press conference that he would like to use better data, but the state does not have it. He said he’s unclear why the federal government has not granted Iowa access.

Des Moines Register Statehouse reporter Marissa Payne contributed to this story.

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.

Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Des Moines Register. She is also covering the 2024 presidential race  as a senior national campaign correspondent. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.