Civil liberties groups have renewed their court battle with Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz in their effort to stop him from using a federal immigration database to try to find voters registered in Iowa who might not be citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa filed documents on Aug. 26 asking a judge to rule on a lawsuit they filed last year or to at least issue a temporary order to keep Schultz from using the data until the lawsuit can be decided. The lawsuit revolves around a voter removal rule Schultz proposed that went into effect March 27. The rule sets up a process to remove voters from registration rolls if Schultz cannot confirm their citizenship by comparing state records with a federal immigration database. After months of negotiations, Schultz obtained permission from the federal government Aug. 14 to get access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements program, called SAVE. It’s administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security and used to confirm immigrant citizenship status to determine eligibility for certain federal benefits.
Schultz plans to match Iowa voter registration lists with the SAVE program. If a voter is not listed as a citizen in SAVE, Schultz’s office will send a letter challenging the voter registration. The letter also will tell the individual that registering to vote without citizenship is a felony.
If the person cannot prove citizenship, the office will forward the individual’s name to a local county election official for removal from the voter registration list.
The ACLU and LULAC claim such a process will intimidate immigrants. ACLU attorney Rita Bettis said the lawsuit now centers on whether Schultz has the authority under Iowa law to remove voters by comparing state records with federal immigration data. “There is no statute authorizing the maintenance of the voter registration list on the basis of citizenship through comparison with federal immigration databases accessible through the SAVE system,” court documents said.
Full Article: ACLU renews suit over voting rules – THonline.com: Iowa-Illinois-Wisconsin.