Miami judge blocks federal noncitizen voting case

For all the noise around election fraud, the law still has a habit of asking the duller question first: who actually gets to set the rules? In Miami, US District Judge David Leibowitz answered that one with unusual clarity, ruling that the federal law used to prosecute Chelsea Cox for allegedly voting as a noncitizen cannot stand.

Leibowitz said the US Constitution leaves voter qualifications to the states, not Congress. Since every state already requires US citizenship to vote, he wrote, Florida is the one that can act here — and, in his words, Florida can and does. The federal case against Cox, a Florida resident, was dismissed.

Cox was charged in October 2025 with illegally voting in the 2020 presidential election. Court filings say she 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.

The ruling is narrow, which is just as well for everyone who prefers not to confuse one courtroom decision with a national constitutional overhaul. It applies only to Cox’s case and does not bind judges elsewhere. Still, about 45 similar cases remain pending across the country, and at least four other defendants have raised the same constitutional challenge.

The political backdrop is familiar enough. Donald Trump has falsely claimed that noncitizen voting cost him the 2020 election and has cast the issue as part of a wider effort by Democrats to dilute Republican support. Since he returned to office in January 2025, the Department of Justice has charged at least 60 people with the offence.

The broader record is less dramatic than the rhetoric. Among 129 people charged with “voting by an alien” since 2021, Reuters reported that none was accused of conspiring to sway an election, backing a candidate or being paid to vote. Most were lawful permanent residents who appear to have registered by mistake or on the wrong advice of an election worker or government clerk. That does not quite fit the grand conspiracy script, though it has not stopped politicians from trying.

For now, the Miami ruling gives states a stronger hand in policing voter eligibility and trims back one federal theory of the case. Whether it becomes anything larger will depend on the other challenges still moving through the courts. Until then, Washington can keep denouncing fraud; the Constitution, rather inconveniently, still insists on dividing authority.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com