1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

I am writing to express my deep outrage over your office’s recent actions to challenge the ballots of over 2,000 Iowans based on wildly outdated and unreliable data—some of it more than two decades old. It is indefensible that your office weaponized this information to cast doubt on the legitimacy of registered voters, many of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens who have every legal right to vote. This is not just a bureaucratic failure—it is an attempt at voter suppression, plain and simple. Let me be perfectly clear: when your office knowingly uses flawed records from the Department of Transportation to question the citizenship of voters—especially within the federally protected 90-day window before an election—you are not protecting election integrity. You are trying to create a narrative that support voter suppression and prejudice against immigrants. The fact that some voters were improperly removed from the rolls and then had to be reinstated is a glaring admission that your office’s actions were reckless and in violation of the National Voter Registration Act. These voters were disenfranchised by your decisions, and no bureaucratic “fix” can undo the damage of making someone feel like a second-class citizen in their own democracy. You have now been sued by the ACLU for these actions. You owe Iowans an explanation, an apology, a complete rollback of these challenges, and a commitment to do better going forward. If you have any respect for democracy, you will take responsibility and ensure this never happens again. You are not the gatekeeper of who gets to be American enough to vote. You are supposed to protect the right to vote, not undermine it with partisan fear tactics.