Biden-appointed judge strikes down federal ban on non-citizen voting

A federal judge in Miami has ruled that a federal ban on noncitizens voting is unconstitutional, dismissing a case against a migrant who voted in 2020, Breitbart reports.

U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz, appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2024, threw out the case against Chelsea Michelle Ann Cox, who knowingly voted as a noncitizen in Broward County in 2020.

In a 31-page opinion, Leibowitz held that Congress overstepped its role in passing the 1996 law, arguing the Constitution leaves voter eligibility to the states. He said the law violates Article I, Article II and the 17th Amendment.

“When you’re prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand,” he wrote.

Prosecutors argue Congress’s immigration powers let it bar noncitizens from voting, citing a 1970 Supreme Court case upholding a lower voting age.

Department of Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival criticised the ruling on X: “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!’”