DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can continue to challenge the validity of hundreds of ballots from would-be noncitizens, even as critics said the effort threatens the voting rights of people who have become recent US citizens.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, an appointee of President Joe Biden, sided with the state in a process filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, on behalf of the Iowa Latino Citizens League and four recently naturalized citizens. The four were on the state’s list of questionable records to be challenged by local election officials.

The state’s Republican attorney general and secretary of state argued that investigating and eventually removing 2,000 names would prevent illegal voting by noncitizens. US GOP officials have made it possible for non-citizen immigrants to vote a key talking point in the election year Even if it is rare. Their focus came on former President Donald Trump falsely suggesting that his opponents are already committing fraud to prevent his return to the White House.

In his decision on Sunday, Locher pointed to a The US Supreme Court decision four days earlier that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls, even though it impacted some American citizens. He also cited the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision regarding state election laws regarding provisional ballots. Those Supreme Court decisions advise lower courts “to exercise great caution before granting last-minute relief,” he wrote.

Locher also said the state’s effort does not remove anyone from the voter rolls, but rather requires some voters to use provisional ballots.

In a statement Sunday, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, celebrated the ruling.

“Today’s decision is a victory for election integrity,” Reynolds said. “In Iowa, while we encourage all citizens to vote, we will enforce the law and make sure those votes are not nullified by the illegal vote of a non-citizen. “

A spokesman for the ACLU said the organization did not immediately have a comment.

After Locher held a hearing in the ACLU lawsuit on Friday, Secretary of State Paul Pate and state Attorney General Brenna Bird issued a statement saying Iowa has about 250 non-citizens registered to vote, but the Biden administration has not provided data about them.

Pate told reporters last month that his office was forced to rely on a list of potential noncitizens from the Iowa Department of Transportation. It named people who registered to vote or voted after identifying themselves as noncitizens legally residing in the U.S. when they previously applied for driver’s licenses.

“Today’s court victory is a guarantee for all Iowans that their votes will count and will not be overturned by illegal ballots,” Bird said in a statement after Sunday’s decision.

But ACLU attorneys said Iowa officials acknowledged that most of the people on the list were eligible to vote and should not have been included. They said the state was violating the voting rights of naturalized citizens by unfairly challenging their registrations and investigating whether they voted.

pate issued his directive Oct. 22, just two weeks before the Nov. 5 election, and ACLU attorneys argued that federal law prohibits such a move so close to Election Day.

“It’s very clear that the Secretary of State understands that this list consists primarily or entirely of American citizens who have exactly the same fundamental fundamental right to vote as the rest of us citizens of Iowa voters,” Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU . of Iowa, said during a Zoom briefing for reporters after the hearing.

Individuals on the state’s prospective noncitizen list may have become naturalized citizens after their filings with the Department of Transportation.

Pate’s office told county election officials to contest their ballots and have them vote provisionally instead. That would leave the decision of whether they will be counted up to local officials after a later review, with voters having seven days to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship.

In his ruling, Locher wrote that Pate had backed away from some of his initial hard-line positions at an earlier meeting. Pate’s lawyer said the secretary of state no longer wants to require local election officials to challenge the votes of every person on his list or to force voters on the list to file provisional ballots even when they have proven citizenship at a registration office. voting.

Federal and state law already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote, and the first question on Iowa’s voter registration form asks if a person is a U.S. citizen. The form also requires potential voters to sign a statement saying they are citizens, warning them that if they lie, they can be convicted of a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Locher’s decision also came after a federal judge had stopped a similar program in Alabama challenged by civil rights groups and the US Department of Justice. Testimony by state officials in that case showed that about 2,000 of the more than 3,200 voters who were made inactive were actually legally registered citizens.

In Iowa’s case, the non-citizens who are registered are potentially only a small fraction of the state’s 2.2 million registered voters.

But Locher wrote that it appears to be undisputed that some of the names on Pate’s list are registered voters who are not US citizens. Even if that portion is small, an ordinance would effectively force local election officials to let ineligible voters vote, he added.

Democrats and Republicans were involved an extended legal battle over this year’s elections for months. Republicans have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging various aspects of the vote after being repeatedly blasted by judges in 2020 for filing complaints about how the election was conducted only after the votes were counted. Democrats have their own team of dozens of staffers fighting GOP cases.

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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas and Goldberg from Minneapolis.