WASHINGTON — After facing legal pressure from two conservative watchdog groups, the Prince George’s County Board of Elections released the unredacted voter registration records of Ian Andre Roberts, an undocumented immigrant who served as Des Moines, Iowa’s school superintendent up until his arrest by ICE in late September.
Roberts emigrated from Ghana to the United States in 1994, and his employment authorization expired in 2020. However, Roberts was still able to maintain high level employment as a superintendent in one of Iowa’s largest public school systems. He formerly served as principal of a Baltimore City public school. He was even a registered Democratic voter in Prince George County, where he previously resided.
Both American Accountability Foundation and Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections made requests for Roberts’ voter registration documentation under the National Voter Registration Act. In response to their requests, the Prince George’s County Board of Elections shared heavily redacted files hiding Roberts’ answer to his citizenship question and his sex. The watchdog groups pushed back against Prince George’s County Board of Elections’ failure to provide the full information and gave the county until Dec. 1 to release the fully redacted information, which the county agreed to.
Documents provided by the Prince George’s Board of Elections to RITE and AAF reveal that Roberts had claimed on the documentation that he was a U.S. Citizen.
“This case demonstrates exactly why Congress enacted the NVRA’s public disclosure mandate,” RITE CEO and President Justin Riemer said of the December records release in a press release.
Meanwhile, the Maryland State Board of Elections stated that Roberts has not voted in elections.
“No one by that name has ever voted in the state of Maryland. As to the identity of the person, we cannot verify whether that is a registered voter or not in the state of Maryland, but with public records, we can say no one by that name has voted in the state,” Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis told WJLA.
Roberts was charged on Oct. 2 for being an illegal alien in possession of firearms. At the time of his arrest, he was found with a loaded handgun, hunting knife and $3,000 in cash.