Miami federal judge strikes down noncitizen voting prosecution law

A federal judge in Miami has ruled that a law used to criminalise voting by noncitizens is unconstitutional, in a decision that narrows a federal prosecution brought against a Florida resident. US District Judge David Leibowitz dismissed the case against Chelsea Cox, who had been charged over a vote cast in the 2020 presidential election. The ruling is limited to Cox's case, but it comes as the administration continues a wider crackdown on alleged election fraud ahead of November's midterm elections.

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Leibowitz found that the US Constitution gives states, not Congress, the authority to set voter qualifications. He said that because every state already requires US citizenship to vote, it is Florida, not the Department of Justice, that has the power to prosecute Cox for violating that rule. In his ruling, he wrote that Florida "can and does" enforce its own laws against the conduct at issue.

The judge was nominated to the bench by former President Joe Biden. Court filings say Cox entered the United States as a tourist in 1999, overstayed her visa and later used a fraudulent birth certificate from the US Virgin Islands to obtain a Florida driver's licence and register to vote in 2012. Her lawyer welcomed the ruling and said he hoped authorities would not now seek to deport her, citing her declining health conditions.

The case has become one of the clearest tests of how far federal authorities can go in pursuing alleged noncitizen voting under election-fraud enforcement efforts. The decision matters because it touches on the balance of power between state election rules and federal criminal enforcement. It also lands in a politically charged environment, with Donald Trump having repeatedly and falsely claimed that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election.

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Noncitizen voting is already illegal and rare, but it has been used by Trump and his allies as part of a broader argument that Democrats have weakened election integrity. The ruling does not bind other courts, but it may influence a wider set of cases. About 45 similar cases remain pending nationwide, and at least four other defendants have raised the same constitutional challenge.

According to the court record, the Department of Justice has charged at least 60 people with the offence since Trump returned to office in January 2025. Reuters reporting cited in the court materials also said that among 129 people charged with "voting by an alien" since 2021, none was accused of conspiring to sway an election, backing a candidate or being paid to vote. What happens next will depend on whether prosecutors pursue appeals or shift strategy in other pending cases.

It is also unclear whether Cox could face state action or immigration consequences after the federal dismissal. For now, the ruling leaves intact Florida's own laws while limiting one federal case, and it adds another legal obstacle to the administration's election-fraud enforcement drive.

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