By james art 
A federal judge ruled Sunday that Iowa can continue to challenge the validity of hundreds of ballots from would-be noncitizens, even though critics said the effort threatens the voting rights of people who have recently become U.S. citizens.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, appointed by President Joe Biden, sided with the state in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa’s capital city 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 election officials.
The state’s attorney general and secretary of state argued that the investigation and eventual removal of 2,000 names would prevent illegal voting by non-citizens. Republican Party officials in the US have made voting for non-citizen immigrants a key topic of conversation in an election year, even though it is rare. Their focus is on former President Donald Trump, who falsely suggests that his opponents are already committing fraud to prevent him from returning to the White House.
In his ruling Sunday, Locher cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling four days earlier that allowed Virginia to resume a similar purge of its voter rolls, even though it affected some U.S. citizens. He also cited the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to review a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on state election laws surrounding provisional ballots. Those Supreme Court decisions advise lower courts to “exercise great caution before granting a last-minute stay,” he wrote.
Locher also said the state’s efforts do not remove anyone from the voter rolls, but rather require some voters to use provisional ballots.
—-
Hannah reported from Topeka, Kansas and Goldberg from Minneapolis.
John Hanna and Michael Goldberg, Associated Press