Federal Judge Rules Noncitizen Voting Law Unconstitutional

A federal judge in Miami dismissed a criminal case against a Florida woman accused of voting as a noncitizen on October 1, ruling that the 1996 federal noncitizen voting law she was charged under is unconstitutional. The order strikes at a noncitizen voting law that sat largely untested for three decades.

U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz issued a 31-page order tossing the misdemeanor case against Chelsea Cox, a Jamaican-born Florida resident. Federal prosecutors had charged Cox in October 2025 over her vote in the 2020 presidential election.

The decision is the first time a federal court has found the noncitizen voting law unconstitutional, according to Reuters, and it turns a rarely tested provision into a live constitutional question. The statute, part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison, for noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

Leibowitz held that the Constitution leaves the power to set voter qualifications to the states, not Congress. He wrote that the Constitution commits to the states, and the states alone, the general power to set voter qualifications in federal elections. Florida already prohibits noncitizen voting, the judge noted, so state prosecutors could pursue Cox under state law. The federal government could not.

Why the ruling stings for the White House

The decision lands as the Trump administration has made noncitizen voting enforcement a centerpiece of its election message. The president has repeatedly alleged, without evidence, that fraud cost him the 2020 election, and his administration has intensified federal prosecutions of alleged noncitizen voters alongside attempts to verify citizenship on state voter rolls.

Critics of the crackdown say it exaggerates a problem that elections experts consider rare, and risks undermining confidence in election results. A Reuters analysis in July found Cox was one of 129 people charged under the noncitizen voting law nationwide. The ruling applies only to Cox and does not bind other judges, but Reuters reported it could prove persuasive in the remaining cases.

The timing adds weight. With midterm elections weeks away, both parties are fighting to keep their House and Senate majorities, and the administration has framed noncitizen voting as a threat to the vote itself. Coverage of how young voters are approaching these midterms shows how much of the electorate's attention is already fixed on November.

The fight over who polices the ballot

Federal prosecutors argued that Congress has the authority to bar noncitizens from federal elections through its constitutional power over immigration. They pointed to a 1970 Supreme Court decision that upheld a federal law lowering the voting age to 18 as precedent for congressional control over election rules.

Leibowitz rejected both arguments. He concluded that regulating voter qualifications belongs to the states, and that immigration authority does not hand Congress the power to decide who may vote. The fight reflects a wider standoff over how the noncitizen voting law is enforced, as the administration pushes federal roll-checks while voting-rights groups challenge them in court.

The ruling drew immediate criticism from allies of the administration. Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, condemned the decision, according to Fox News. Lee co-authored the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register for federal elections, and the bill remains stalled in the Senate. Leibowitz, who was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden, has also faced criticism from Trump administration officials over the ruling.

What happens next

The Justice Department moved to appeal the ruling shortly after it was issued, setting up a fight that could reach the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and decide the fate of the noncitizen voting law beyond Cox's case. An appellate decision would carry far more weight than a single district court order, and the legal question could eventually land before the Supreme Court.

For now, the ruling stands for Cox alone. But if it survives appeal, the consequences would extend well beyond one case. Prosecutors would lose the noncitizen voting law as a federal tool, and states would hold the full burden of policing the qualification at the heart of the statute. The site's coverage of Greece's trial of human rights defenders follows another courtroom clash drawing international attention.