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A federal judge ruled Sunday that hundreds of ballots from potential noncitizens can have their validity challenged, while critics say that it will threaten the voting rights of recently naturalized citizens. 

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in Des Moines, the capital of Iowa, on behalf of the League of Latin American Citizens of Iowa and four recently naturalized citizens who were on the state’s list of questionable registrations to be challenged by local elections officials.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, sided with the state, according to Fox News. The state’s representatives argued that the process of investigating and possibly removing 2,000 names could prevent illegal voting by noncitizens.

In his ruling, Locher cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision from earlier in the week which allowed Virginia to resume its process of removing names of potentially noncitizen voters from its rolls. He said that this effort by the state doesn’t actually remove anyone from the voter rolls, but instead requires some voters to use provisional ballots.