Miami judge rules federal non-citizen voting law violates US Constitution | Court News
Judge Leibowitz’s decision emphasizes state jurisdiction over voter qualifications, thereby limiting federal actions.
Published on October 2, 2026
A US federal judge has ruled that a law criminalizing non-citizen voting is unconstitutional, in a setback for President Donald Trump’s administration as it cracks down on allegations of voter fraud in the run-up to the November midterm elections.
U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz in Miami on Thursday dismissed a federal complaint against Chelsea Cox, a Florida resident originally from Jamaica who was charged in October 2025 with voting illegally in the 2020 presidential election.
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Leibowitz, who was appointed to the bench by former Democratic President Joe Biden, found that under the U.S. Constitution, only states, not the U.S. Congress, have the authority to set voter qualifications.
Since every state already requires U.S. citizenship to vote, he wrote, it is up to Florida, not the Justice Department, to prosecute Cox for violating that rule. “Florida can and does,” he wrote, noting that the state already has its own laws against the conduct Cox is accused of.
The ruling applies only to Cox’s case and does not bind judges elsewhere, although about 45 similar cases remain pending nationwide. At least four other defendants have raised the same constitutional challenge.
Court records show Cox entered the United States as a tourist in 1999, overstayed her visa and then used a fraudulent birth certificate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean, to obtain a Florida driver’s license and register to vote in 2012.
Trump falsely claimed that non-citizen voting, which is already illegal and rare, cost him the 2020 election, and presented it as part of a broader effort by Democrats to dilute Republican support.
The Justice Department has charged at least 60 people with this offense since Trump returned to office in January 2025.
Of the 129 people charged with “outsider voting” since 2021, none have been charged with conspiring to influence an election, supporting a candidate or being paid to vote, according to Reuters. Most were legal permanent residents who had registered by mistake or on the erroneous advice of an election worker or government clerk.
Cox’s lawyer, Bruce Udolf, welcomed the decision and said he hoped authorities would not now seek to deport him, citing his declining health.
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