DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate released a statement today following an audit of 2.3 million voting records dating back to 2000.

That audit found that there were 87 people who self-reported they were not citizens after they had voted, and 67 people who self-reported that they were not citizens after registering to vote. Those names have been turned over to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and the Iowa Department of Public Safety to see if those individuals will face any prosecution. This is a class D felony, with a potential sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

There were 2,022 people who self-reported they were not citizens and have voted or registered to vote, but the audit could not verify if those individuals were still not citizens of the United States, as they could have gained citizenship after receiving a drivers license in the state.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s Office told WHO 13 News that it identified these individuals after cross checking voting registration information with Department of Transportation records of U.S. citizenship.

“We have been focused very intensely on making sure we’re looking closer and closer at the citizenship question because it’s a national issue as well,” said Pate (R). “And when we got to a point where we found some discrepancies, we wanted to take some kind of action because I’ve assured Iowans of the integrity of our elections and we want to be as transparent as we can be.”

States are not allowed to ask for documentation to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, protected by federal law in the National Voter Registration Act. But when a non-citizen gets a drivers license in the state, the state DOT keeps a record of whether the individual is a citizen. The office used that database to crosscheck voter registration to see if there were people who may have voted illegally. The Iowa Secretary of State’s Office told WHO 13 News that it will be using this method for future elections.

“I take it very seriously in the sense that we don’t want anybody voting who shouldn’t be voting because we have some pretty close elections, you know, you have elections that are tied and they are having to draw the winner’s name out of a hat, we have congressional races determined by six votes, so yes, I think this is a pretty concerning issue to us,” said Pate.

Pate’s Office told WHO 13 News that the state requested the “SAVE” List which lists legal non-citizens with identification numbers. This would make the process easier to crosscheck the voting registry, but the state hasn’t heard back from the federal government on accessing that list. Other states also haven’t received it. The idea to use the state DOT’s database in Iowa came from other states using the same method. Pate said that he is not getting the cooperation from the federal government that he and peers in other states need.

In the meantime, those more than two thousand voters are on a list for poll workers to check for at different precincts around the state. A poll worker will challenge the alleged non-citizen to a provisional ballot. That ballot will not be placed in the official ballot box until that person can clear up their citizenship status, which will have to be in front of a review board after the election.

Some questioned the audit and how it was conducted.

The Secretary of State already has safeguards in place to review people before they are approved and receive a voter registration card. Pate’s office should share what their methods are in that verification process to identify any weakness if he truly believes 2,100 non-citizens were caught trying to bypass our voting laws.”

Joe Henry, Political Director for the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa

Pate said that he will be working with Iowa’s Congressional Delegation and any state laws that need to be changed to make the process smoother, while adding that the office will work harder on internal procedures to make sure information is up to date.

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