Iowa moves to purge non-citizens from voter rolls using federal records

Governor signs election overhaul into law

Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 954 on June 2, 2025, putting two big changes into Iowa’s election rules. The law bans ranked-choice voting statewide and adds new citizenship checks for voter registration.

It passed the Iowa House 65-31 and the Senate 32-15, mostly along party lines. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate proposed the bill.

Most parts took effect July 1, 2025, with the ranked-choice voting ban kicking in on Jan. 1, 2026.

Pate pointed to noncitizen voters as proof

Before the 2024 election, Pate’s office flagged more than 2,100 registered voters as possible noncitizens using Iowa Department of Transportation records.

The federal government initially refused to share its citizenship databases to help check the list. Pate told county auditors to challenge those voters’ ballots weeks before the November election.

After getting access to the federal SAVE database, his office confirmed 277 of the 2,176 flagged people were noncitizens. Of those, 35 cast ballots were counted.

New checks happen at registration now

Under the law, the Secretary of State’s office can now contract with federal agencies, state agencies, and private companies to verify voter rolls.

The Iowa Department of Transportation must send over a list of anyone 17 and older who submitted documents showing they are not a citizen. Voters whose citizenship can’t be confirmed land in a new “unconfirmed” status.

They need to provide proof of citizenship to get back to active status. The big shift here: verification now happens at registration, not on Election Day.

Poll workers can question citizenship too

Election workers now have the power to question a person’s citizenship when they show up to vote. That adds citizenship to the list of things poll workers could already challenge, like age and residency.

A voter who gets challenged can still cast a provisional ballot, but they have to provide citizenship documents afterward for that ballot to count.

It’s a new layer of screening that didn’t exist before in Iowa’s voting process.

Iowa city was using ranked-choice voting

Iowa elections can no longer use ranked-choice voting or instant runoff voting to cast or count ballots. Ranked-choice voting lets voters rank candidates by preference instead of picking just one.

Here’s the thing: no local government in Iowa was actually using ranked-choice voting when the ban passed.

The provision took effect Jan. 1, 2026, making it a preemptive move to block cities or counties from adopting it in the future.

Iowa joins a growing wave of state bans

Iowa became one of six states to ban ranked-choice voting in 2025, joining Arkansas, Kansas, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

As of 2025, 17 states have banned ranked-choice voting, and all but two did so under Republican-controlled governments.

Supporters of these bans say ranked-choice voting confuses voters and makes elections harder to audit. Opponents argue it gives voters more choices and tends to produce winners with broader support across the electorate.

Third parties face a higher bar too

The law also makes it harder for smaller parties to stay on the ballot.

A political party’s candidate for governor or president now needs at least 2% of the vote in three straight general elections to keep major party status. Before, hitting 2% in just one election was enough.

That change directly affects parties like the Libertarian Party, which will now have a much tougher time maintaining ballot access in Iowa going forward.

Backers say the law protects elections

Pate said the law makes sure only eligible voters take part in Iowa elections.

Rep. Austin Harris, who managed the bill in the House, pointed to close Iowa races decided by fewer than 35 votes as a reason to guard against illegal ballots.

Linn County Auditor Todd Taylor called the new law “probably going to be a good thing” because it gives election workers tools to check eligibility at the point of registration instead of scrambling later.

Critics warn naturalized citizens bear the burden

The ACLU and LULAC filed a federal lawsuit challenging Pate’s 2024 voter challenge directive.

About 88% of the voters originally flagged as possible noncitizens turned out to be U.S. citizens who were eligible to vote.

Critics said the 2024 list relied on outdated DOT records that didn’t account for people who had since become naturalized citizens.

The ACLU of Iowa said the effort placed unfair burdens on naturalized citizens that U.S.-born citizens never faced.

A settlement put limits on future lists

In February 2026, the ACLU, LULAC, and Pate’s office reached a settlement.

Under the terms, the 2024 list of possible noncitizens can’t be used in future elections or voter roll maintenance. Any future voter challenge lists issued within 90 days of an election can’t rely only on DOT data.

Iowa also locked in a separate agreement giving it access to the federal SAVE database for 20 years. Pate said his office now focuses on verifying citizenship at registration, not at the polls.

Most voters won’t notice any changes

Voters whose citizenship is confirmed won’t see any difference in how they vote.

Anyone placed in “unconfirmed” status will get a notice and can provide citizenship documents to restore active status. If a poll worker challenges a voter’s eligibility, that person can still cast a provisional ballot.

Iowa had about 2.1 million registered voters, and more than 1.6 million people voted in 2024. The 35 confirmed noncitizen ballots made up a tiny fraction of all votes cast.

Iowa begins its first election cycle under new rules

All parts of House File 954 are now in effect as of Jan. 1, 2026.

The Secretary of State’s office is running a voter registration verification pilot program with a third-party vendor during the first quarter of 2026.

The ACLU and LULAC settlement was still awaiting final court approval as of February 2026. Iowa’s 2026 elections will be the first full cycle under the new law.

Ranked-choice voting supporters in Iowa say they aren’t done, noting 44 state legislators voted against the ban.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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