A federal judge in Miami has dismissed a case against a noncitizen who admitted to voting in Broward County in 2020, ruling that the federal law barring noncitizens from voting in federal elections is unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz, appointed to the bench by President Joe Biden in 2024, threw out the case against Chelsea Michelle Ann Cox in a 31-page opinion. Cox had knowingly voted despite not being a U.S. citizen.
Leibowitz found that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority when it passed the 1996 law prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections, a statute that carries penalties of up to a year in prison and fines for violators. He argued the law conflicts with Article I, Article II, and the 17th Amendment of the Constitution, which he said leave the determination of voter eligibility to the states.
“When you’re prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand,” Leibowitz wrote.
Federal prosecutors had argued that Congress’s constitutional authority over immigration gives it the power to exclude noncitizens from voting in federal elections. They also pointed to a 1970 Supreme Court case upholding a congressional law that lowered the voting age to 18 as precedent for Congress’s authority to set rules affecting federal elections.
Trump administration Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticized the ruling on X, writing, “A Biden appointed judge in Florida says that federal bans on noncitizen voting are unconstitutional. The thing that never happens is now ‘constitutionally protected activity!'”
If Leibowitz’s ruling withstands appeal, it could set a precedent affecting how future cases of illegal voting by noncitizens are prosecuted at the federal level, raising questions about the balance of power between Congress and the states over election integrity.
