By William Morris, Des Moines Register
The Iowa Attorney General’s Office continues to bring charges against noncitizens accused of illegally voting in Iowa, but has not yet filed any charges related to alleged illegal voting in the 2024 presidential election, despite a claim by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate that dozens of noncitizens voted and hundreds more were registered to vote.
At the Des Moines Register’s request, a spokesperson for Attorney General Brenna Bird provided the names of six people who have been charged since she took office. Two of those cases had previously been announced — the September 2024 arrest of a Marshalltown man accused of illegally voting in a city council special election, and the November 2024 arrest of a Graettinger man charged with illegally voting in a 2021 city and school board election.
Since then, court records show Bird’s office has filed four additional cases. In Johnson County, Emmanuel Gathua of Iowa City was charged in March with illegally voting in the November 2023 election, and Itzel Romero Lopez was charged with illegally registering and voting in a March 2022 election. Also in March, Jose Lozano Munoz was charged in Sioux County with illegally voting in elections in March 2022, March 2023 and November 2023. And in April, Roque Ramirez Vasquez was charged with voting in a June 2022 election.
Iowa law bars noncitizens from registering to vote and voting. It is illegal and rare for noncitizens to vote in federal elections for president or top-ticket congressional races.
According to court filings, Ramirez Vasquez is a legal U.S. resident. But he is not a citizen and nonetheless had been registered to vote since 1999. Gathua and Romero Lopez allegedly registered to vote on the same days they voted, and the complaint against Lozano Munoz does not specify when and how he registered to vote.
The charges come amid allegations by Pate, the state’s chief election officer, about illegal voting in the 2024 election. Following an audit of voter registration polls referenced against other state and federal citizenship records, Pate alleged in March that 35 noncitizens voted last year in Iowa and another five had their ballots rejected. He also reported 277 noncitizens had been identified on the state’s voter rolls, although the vast majority did not register or attempt to vote in 2024.
That’s a much smaller list than the 2,176 suspected noncitizens Pate told county voting officials in Iowa to challenge in advance of November’s election. Opponents have accused Pate of seeking to discourage legal voters from casting ballots, and a lawsuit filed by several voters and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa remains pending against him.
Pate said in March he was referring all 277 noncitizens on the list to the Iowa Department of Public Safety and Attorney General’s Office for potential prosecution. Bird has not yet charged anyone with misconduct related to the 2024 election.
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