Biden judge rules Iowa can check ballots of potential noncitizens in blow to ACLU

 A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can challenge the validity of hundreds of ballots from potential noncitizens despite critics arguing that it will threaten the voting rights of recently naturalized citizens.

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

The state's attorney general and secretary of state argued that investigating and potentially removing 2,000 names would prevent illegal voting by noncitizens. GOP officials across the U.S. have made possible voting by noncitizen immigrants a key election-year talking point.

In his ruling Sunday, Locher referenced a U.S. Supreme Court decision four days prior that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter registration rolls.

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