A Biden appointed judge has dismissing a federal lawsuit against a Jamaican national, claiming that barring noncitizens from voting in US elections is “unconstitutional.”
Judge David Leibowitz, from Florida, ruled that federal prosecutors could not pursue the Jamaican national for voting in federal elections, because only states can decide whether noncitizens can vote.
Chelsea Cox entered the US as a tourist in 1999 and remained after her visa expired in 2000. She then used a fraudulent birth certificate from the US Virgin Islands to obtain a Florida driver’s license and register to vote in US elections.
Prosecutors alleged she voted in federal elections from 2012 to 2020, but only the 2020 vote falls within the statute of limitations for 18 U.S.C. § 611 (“voting by an alien”), a law passed in 1996 to prevent noncitizens from voting in federal elections.
Judge Leibowitz ruled, however, that only states can choose voter qualifications, not Congress.
He said it was up to the State of Florida to pursue Cox.
“Can the State of Florida prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in here? This has already been decided elsewhere and is not addressed here: Florida can and does,” Liebowitz wrote.
He concluded that “the Constitution does not authorize Congress to legislate voter qualifications for federal elections.”