Yes, you read that headline correctly. A judge has decided that a 1996 federal law banning illegals from voting is…unconstitutional.

Miami-based U.S. District Judge David S. Leibowitz ruled Thursday in a 31-page order that the criminal case against Chelsea Cox, who was charged in October 2025 with a misdemeanor for illegally voting in 2020, must be dismissed. He said a decades-old federal law that prohibits a non-U.S. citizen from voting in a federal election, 18 U.S.C. § 611, is unconstitutional.

Under the U.S. Constitution, Leibowitz wrote, only states can set voter qualifications, not Congress. The judge said state prosecutors in Florida could prosecute Cox under state law for unlawfully voting, not the federal government.

The decision applies only to Cox and appears to be the first time a court has deemed the statute unconstitutional. But it could dent the Justice Department’s push to pursue noncitizen voting, a practice that most elections experts say is rare but that President Trump has long alleged — without evidence — is common.

In 1996, Congress passed a law making it a misdemeanor to for anyone who is not an American citizen to vote in federal elections. Who was President in 1996? Bill Clinton. He signed that legislation into law. Ever since then, the law has held. And when states have modified laws to allow illegals to vote, their votes are ONLY for local and state elections, not federal.

But now, we have a Biden appointed judge deciding that this 1996 law is unconstitutional.

The ruling by Leibowitz, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, appears to be the first time a federal court has found the 1996 law a violation of the US Constitution.

Leibowitz wrote that under the US Constitution only states can set voter qualifications, not Congress. Every state requires US citizenship to vote, and Leibowitz said it was up to Florida, not the Department of Justice, to prosecute her for violating that requirement.

“Can the State of Florida prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in here? This has already been decided elsewhere and is not addressed here: Florida can and does,” Leibowitz wrote.

Leibowitz literally claims that, Constitutionally, Congress was never allowed to pass that 1996 law.

Leibowitz cited Article I, Article II and the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which he interpreted as reserving to states the authority to determine who can and can’t vote in federal elections.

Accordingly, he focused on the Constitution’s limit on federal power rather than whether Cox illegally cast a ballot.

“When you’re prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand,” he wrote, pointing to several landmark cases — including Marbury v. Madison, United States v. Hudson and Ex parte Siebold — as precedential.

Congress can regulate election procedures, he added, but that authority does not generally extend to choosing the electorate.

“To hold otherwise would allow Congress to establish and modify the parameters of its own special electorate, entirely divorced from what Florida or any other State may decide,” he wrote. “That result is precisely what our federal constitutional republic does not allow.”

Except that there has never ever been a Constitutional challenge to this law. Furthermore, Florida was definitely going after Chelsea Cox for illegally voting in federal elections, and has charged at least 20 others in recent months. Leibowitz definitely used twisted reasoning throughout his 31 page ruling. And he definitely upended several articles of the Constitution.

Judge Boasberg and the other activist judges throughout the judiciary must be so proud.

Block, obstruct, and make decisions designed to protect the rights of the unlawful…. pic.twitter.com/Zz5pP3WAtr

— John Ayres (@JohnAyr12294351) October 2, 2026

This ruling comes at a time when Florida has codified their own SAVE Act, Americans across the country are wanting one passed in Congress (if John Thune ever stops blocking it), and President Trump is wanting proof of citizenship for voter registration.

I have no problem with that requirement. Democrats obviously do. And they absolutely want illegals to vote in all the elections.

This ruling is essentially telling Congress that they had, and by inference have, no right to enact any law that does or “might” supersede a state law.

Needless to say, a great many people have opinions about all of this. But here’s one, via HotAir that is something worth considering.

It is a question of federalism. The structure of the relationship between the federal government and the states is that the Constitution rested some powers exclusively in the states. Members of Congress are, at their core, representatives from the states. How the states pick their representatives was a decision left to the states as a matter of sovereignty.

“Time, place, and manner” clause relates to the process of how elections are to be held.

“Qualifications” clause relates to how the states choose to establish eligibility to cast a vote.

Congress passed a law in 1996 making it a federal crime for aliens to vote.

Does that mean it was “legal” for them to vote from 1789 to 1996?

This ruling doesn’t say “Aliens can vote.”

That’s the outrage porn headline to generate clicks.

The ruling says it can’t be a federal crime.

It can still be against state law — the absence of it being a federal crime is not the same as saying aliens are eligible to vote.

“Legality” and “eligibility” are not synonymous.

Shipwrecked does make an interesting point here. And then adds this in response.

Citizens have the "right" to vote. The issue is whether states, as a matter of state sovereignty, can make non-citizens eligible under state law.

As I understand the Florida decision, the rationale is that by making it a federal crime for an alien vote, Congress has created a… https://t.co/4MyMFGaZkv

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) October 3, 2026

There’s a lot of twists and turns on this. But one thing I do believe is that the Democrats are going to take this ruling and run with it as fast as they can.

"it's not happening!"
"It's not happening enough to matter!"
"It's happening, but it's acually a good thing!!"

Every. Single. Time.

— Leo (@RealAmericanLeo) October 3, 2026

Exactly.

Feature Photo Credit: US vote via iStock, cropped and modified