A federal district judge has held that Congress had no constitutional authority to enact the federal ban on noncitizen voting, as applied to one defendant. The ruling does not legalize anything, and it is likely to be appealed. But it exposes a structural question that the prosecutions did not settle: who gets to decide who votes?
On October 1, 2026, U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz of the Southern District of Florida dismissed a one-count misdemeanor information against Chelsea Michelle Ann Cox, a Jamaican national accused of voting in the 2020 federal election in Broward County. In a 31-page memorandum opinion, he concluded that 18 U.S.C. § 611, the 1996 statute making it unlawful for a noncitizen to vote in federal elections, could not support the prosecution because it is, in substance, a voter-qualification law, and the Constitution assigns voter qualifications for federal elections to the states.
Some headlines have summarized the decision as a ruling that Congress cannot bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections. The opinion is narrower than that. It decides that this statute, applied to this defendant, exceeds Congress’s enumerated powers. It does not say noncitizens may vote, and it says Florida may prosecute the conduct itself. The gap between the shorthand and the text is the subject of this analysis, and it matters whichever way one thinks the case should come out on appeal.
What Is Alleged, and What Was Decided
The government alleges that Cox knowingly voted in a federal election in Broward County on October 29, 2020, knowing she was not a U.S. citizen. According to press accounts of the charging allegations, prosecutors also say she overstayed a tourist visa and used a fraudulent U.S. Virgin Islands birth certificate to obtain identification and register to vote (The National Desk). Those allegations were not adjudicated. The court dismissed on a legal ground and made no findings about what Cox did.
The procedural history is unusual. The information was filed on October 22, 2025. After Cox moved to dismiss, the court ordered supplemental briefing, appointed two outside lawyers, Paul D. Clement and Chadwick J. Harper, to serve pro bono as amici curiae, and heard argument on September 15, 2026. The court allowed Cox to add an as-applied challenge and declined to decide whether § 611 is invalid on its face. The holding is therefore limited: § 611 is unconstitutional as applied to Cox, and the information is dismissed.
The Statute and Its “Unless” Clause
Congress enacted § 611 in 1996 (Pub. L. 104-208, div. C, title II, § 216). It makes it unlawful for a noncitizen to vote in any election held solely or partly to choose the President, Vice President, presidential electors, senators, or members of the House, and it carries a fine, up to one year in prison, or both. A 2000 amendment added a narrow exception for people who reasonably believed they were citizens and who meet parentage and residency conditions.
The feature that drives the opinion is the statute’s “unless” clause. A noncitizen escapes liability if the election is held partly for another purpose, if state or local law authorizes noncitizens to vote for that purpose, and if that voting is conducted independently of voting for federal candidates. In other words, the statute accommodates the few localities that let noncitizens vote in municipal contests, while forbidding them from voting for federal office even where state law would permit it. The court read that structure as decisive: “Congress clearly meant to prohibit an alien from voting in a federal election even when permitted by state law” (p. 21). A statute that overrides what state law allows is not enforcing a state’s qualification. It is setting its own.
The Constitutional Argument
The text of the Constitution supplies the starting point. Article I, Section 2 provides that electors for the House of Representatives in each state “shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” The Seventeenth Amendment adopts the same rule for senators. The Elections Clause, by contrast, lets Congress regulate the “Times, Places and Manner” of federal elections. The Supreme Court drew the line between those provisions in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (2013), in an opinion by Justice Scalia: Congress may regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them. The Cox opinion’s own phrasing (p. 13) tracks that formulation.
The opinion proceeds in four steps. First, it holds that Oregon v. Mitchell (1970), on which the government relied, does not control; applying the Marks rule for fractured decisions, the court concluded it stands at most for congressional power to set voting-age qualifications (pp. 7-13). Second, it holds that the states alone set voter qualifications for federal elections (pp. 16-20). Third, it holds that § 611 is a voter-qualification law (pp. 20-22). Fourth, it holds that no enumerated power rescues it (pp. 22-29).
The Government’s Arguments
The court addressed the government’s two principal alternatives. The first was Congress’s power over immigration and foreign affairs. The court accepted that those powers can reach foreign interference in elections, but held that § 611’s structure, particularly the “unless” clause mirroring state law, shows it regulates the composition of the electorate. Specific constitutional provisions on voter qualifications, it reasoned, control over general powers: “Foundational constitutional limits do not give way, even to capacious general provisions” (p. 27).
The second was the Elections Clause, defended as a tool for protecting election integrity. The court held the Clause governs the mechanics of elections, not who may vote, and, as RSN read the opinion, noted that the government offered no evidence that § 611 operates as a fraud-prevention measure (pp. 27-29). The Fourteenth and Fifth Amendment arguments were mentioned only in a footnote and not reached (p. 22 n.23). The court also observed that the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. Knight upheld § 611 against due process and Fifth Amendment challenges but did not present this question (p. 3 n.2).
The Case Against the Ruling
The criticism deserves a fair statement. Hans von Spakovsky of Advancing American Freedom called the decision “patently wrong,” arguing that Congress has plenary authority over naturalization and may bar noncitizens from federal elections, and predicted the Eleventh Circuit will reverse (as reported by Hoodline). The Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel, James Percival, also criticized the ruling publicly. The underlying argument is not frivolous: a noncitizen is a person Congress may regulate in ways it cannot regulate citizens, and voting for federal office by a foreign national implicates foreign-affairs interests.
RSN has covered this territory from that side before, including von Spakovsky’s 2016 account of a dispute over noncitizen voter registration and a 2016 watchdog finding that noncitizens had registered and voted in Virginia. The practical concern is real and documented. The judicial question is different: whether a legitimate concern authorizes this particular federal statute.
What the Ruling Does Not Do
The opinion is explicit about its limits. It does not decide the facial challenge. It does not address Florida’s power over Cox’s conduct, and the court noted that Florida can and does prohibit it (p. 29); Florida’s own citizenship requirement for voting is untouched. It does not address the government’s separate power to seek removal under immigration law (pp. 29-30). And it does not decide the fate of a differently drafted statute. The amici’s hypothetical, a federal law criminalizing noncitizen voting that violates a qualification set by the state, was described by the court as likely constitutional (pp. 25, 30), and enforcement of state qualifications would be, in the court’s words, “a very different kettle of fish.”
As a district-court ruling applied to one defendant, it does not bind other judges. Press reports indicate federal prosecutors are expected to appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. RSN did not locate a notice of appeal at the time of writing, and the Justice Department’s public position, as reported, is that it disagrees with the ruling.
Proven, Stated, and Not Established
- Documented in the opinion: the court’s holdings, its reasoning, the dates, the appointment of amici, and the limits it placed on its own decision.
- Alleged, not adjudicated: that Cox voted in 2020 knowing she was a noncitizen, overstayed a visa, and used a fraudulent birth certificate.
- Predicted, not established: that the Eleventh Circuit will reverse, and that other district courts will follow or reject this reasoning.
- Not established by this ruling: that noncitizens have any right to vote in federal elections, or that any state permits it.
The Institutional Lesson
Conservatives have long argued that federalism is a constraint rather than a convenience, and that Congress’s power must be located in the constitutional text rather than inferred from the importance of the goal. The Cox opinion applies that principle against a statute many conservatives favor. That is uncomfortable, and it is also the test of whether the principle is held sincerely. A rule that limits federal power only when federal power is used for purposes one dislikes is not a rule.
There is also a drafting failure in the record. Congress in 1996 wrote a federal prohibition with an exception deferring to local law, which is precisely the feature the court found to reveal a qualification statute rather than an enforcement statute. The court’s own discussion suggests that a law making it a federal crime to vote in violation of a state’s qualifications would stand on different footing. The Knight decision addressed other objections, and the opinion frames the source-of-power question as the dispositive issue here; one press account describes it as a question no federal court had previously faced (JURIST), a characterization RSN has not independently confirmed.
The pattern of statutes defended by the gravity of their purpose, with the structural question surfacing only when a litigant and a court press it, is not confined to elections. RSN examined a related dynamic in the executive branch in its analysis of the Supreme Court’s immigration-detention case, and the Eleventh Circuit, where any appeal would be heard, featured in RSN’s October 4 analysis of an adversity finding.
The practical path for those who want federal enforcement is available on the opinion’s own terms: legislation that enforces state-set qualifications rather than displacing them, alongside state laws that already bar noncitizen voting. The alternative, an appellate ruling that Congress holds general power over the electorate whenever a federal office is on the ballot, would reach well beyond noncitizens. Whoever prevails, the question of who defines the American voter now has a reasoned answer from one court, and the Eleventh Circuit will likely be asked whether it is correct.
Sourcing Note
Page references and quotations are to the October 1, 2026 opinion in United States v. Cox, No. 0:25-cr-60249 (S.D. Fla.) as RSN read it; readers should verify against the PDF. Press accounts consulted include JURIST, The National Desk, and Hoodline. This article analyzes a court ruling and does not assert that any individual committed the conduct alleged.