ALEXANDRIA, VA — In United States v. Cox, U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz mistakenly ruled that the federal criminal law prohibiting aliens from voting was unconstitutional as applied to Chelsea Michelle Ann Cox. Federal prosecutors alleged that Cox, who is Jamaican, voted despite not being a U.S. citizen.
“American elections belong to American citizens,” said PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams. “PILF has spent years obtaining government records showing that foreign nationals are getting registered and illegally casting ballots. We need effective citizenship verification and enforcement to protect citizens’ votes and keep aliens from unlawfully participating in our elections.”
“Judge Leibowitz’s erroneous decision fails to comply with precedent and fails to acknowledge the plenary authority given to Congress by the Constitution to regulate the conditions under which aliens are allowed to enter and remain in the country. This dangerous ruling should be swiftly overturned by the Eleventh Circuit,” said Hans von Spakovsky, chairman of the board of PILF.
PILF’s investigations and litigation have exposed recurring failures, including:
- Oregon and South Dakota: PILF’s 2025 research brief examined automatic voter registration failures following officials’ disclosure of more than 1,600 noncitizen registrations in Oregon and 273 in South Dakota
- North Carolina: Records obtained through PILF litigation showed that a state audit identified 1,454 registrants who did not appear to have naturalized before Election Day 2014. Of those, 89 attempted to vote.
- Pennsylvania: PILF’s Allegheny County investigation documented 139 noncitizen registrations and subsequent cancellations between 2006 and 2018. Twenty-seven percent cast at least one ballot before removal.
- New Jersey: Garden State Gotcha documented 1,069 admitted and officially recorded noncitizens interacting with the voter registration system in 11 counties, including instances of voting.
- Nationwide: Safe Spaces examined records of noncitizen registration and voting in jurisdictions across 7 states, including California, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia, and New York.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.
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