Maryland kept printing ballots for illegal immigrant Ian Roberts long after he moved to Iowa

Weeks after the country learned that he was an illegal immigrant — and that he lived a thousand miles away in Iowa — former Des Moines schools Superintendent Ian Roberts’ name remains on Maryland’s voter rolls, according to multiple sources.

How Mr. Roberts, who was arrested by ICE late last month, ended up on Maryland’s voter list in the first place has the makings of a scandal.

That he remained on the list, and even had multiple absentee ballots printed for the address on file, even though he was long gone in Iowa and under Maryland’s own rules probably should have been booted from the lists years ago, only deepens the questions the state is now facing.

The voter profile for “Ian Andre Roberts,” obtained by the American Accountability Foundation, indicates that he received an absentee ballot from Maryland in 2020, about the time he was leaving a school job in St. Louis and taking a job as superintendent in Millcreek, Pennsylvania. He was listed for more absentee ballots in 2025 and again earlier this year, when he was running schools in Iowa’s biggest city.

Tom Jones at the AAF obtained Mr. Roberts’ registration form through an open-records request from Prince George’s County, where he was registered to vote. Strikingly, the county redacted Mr. Roberts’ answer to whether he was a citizen — a move one veteran of voting records requests said he’d never seen before.

Mr. Jones found that troubling.

Either he checked “Yes” and the state is protecting his answer, or he checked “No” — or left it blank — and the state registered him anyway. No matter what, it exposes a problem.

Mr. Roberts did sign the forms, which is another attestation of citizenship.

“The verification process in Maryland for whether you’re a lawful voter with regard to citizenship is ‘I pinky-swear,’” Mr Jones said. “I don’t know another place in life this serious that we’re willing to take such a flimsy assertion.”

Maryland Delegate Brian Chisholm, Anne Arundel County Republican, said Mr. Roberts’ history is an embarrassing episode for the state.

“It was so obvious this guy should not be on our voter registration rolls and should have been removed. So how many other people are in that same category?” Mr. Chisolm said. “We’re just ripe for fraud and abuse in this state. People want election integrity. We just sow more and more doubt into it when we learn of cases like this. I don’t think it’s isolated.”

Election officials have clammed up.

The Prince George’s Board of Elections referred questions to its deputy administrator, Demetra K.M. Hutchinson. She referred questions to the State Board of Elections. The state pointed back to a news release it issued on Sept. 30, more than two weeks ago, as its only word on the matter.

In that statement, the board said it was aware of public reports about Mr. Roberts but cautioned against reading too much into them, saying just because the name was the same, it didn’t mean that was the voter in question.

“Therefore, SBE cannot and will not publicly announce whether media reports about the individual in question is or is not or was or was not a registered voter in Maryland,” the officials said.

They did say that the person listed as Ian Andre Roberts never voted.

The board also defended its slow walk on removing names from its voter rolls, saying that to remove a name for noncitizenship, the board said, requires either the voter’s own self-request or “a report to the jury commissioners.”

“This office will not disenfranchise a voter based upon partial or unsubstantiated evidence. The right to vote is a sacred right that has been expanded through sacrifices of many before us,” the board said.

Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins, the Montgomery County Democrat who heads the state House subcommittee that oversees elections, didn’t respond to inquiries.

Nikki Tyree, executive director of the League of Women Voters in Maryland, said she didn’t see the Roberts case as raising any flags and praised the state for its conservative approach to purging its rolls.

“We would rather have our elections administration be cautious so as not to impact people who are eligible to vote, and really rely on that process of making sure that ineligible people are not voting,” she said.

Ms. Tyree said she was confident of that.

“I’m not really concerned about the process,” she said. “What I will say is there needs to be some explanation why he wasn’t removed from the list. However, I’m very confident that the State Board of Elections has a process in place that he would never have been allowed to vote.”

But Mr. Chisolm, the GOP delegate, said that wasn’t true, given the absentee ballots approved for his address.

“He could have absolutely cast a mail-in ballot or showed up in person and voted. He was active on the rolls,” Mr. Chisolm said.

Mr. Roberts has been indicted on federal charges of being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and lying on his I-9 form verifying to claim he was allowed to work legally in the U.S.

He was initially arrested by ICE officers for being a deportable alien. He had a loaded Glock handgun in the vehicle at the time, which authorities said was purchased by Lenisha Roberts, Mr. Roberts’ spouse. In a search of his home, authorities found another handgun, a rifle and a shotgun, and various rounds of ammunition.

According to documents obtained by Mr. Jones at AAF, Ian Andrew Roberts registered in December 2011, and the card said it was an address change, though the county listed him as a new voter when it added him to the records in January 2012.

The box where he was to check for being a U.S. citizen is redacted, as is the box for sex, his address and his birthday. He registered as a Democrat.

Two years later, a voter card sent to the address was returned to the board of elections as “vacant” and his voter status was moved to “inactive” in the summer of 2014, and from inactive to canceled in December 2016.

Days later, he filed an electronic voter registration application and was moved to “active” in early 2017.

That 2016 form again listed his party as Democrat. The county redacted the sex, birthday, address and citizenship boxes, as well as the method of registration box.

The SBE, in its statement, didn’t specifically say Mr. Roberts registered at a motor vehicle office, but it did take pains to say that people who are automatically registered at the vehicle offices may do so “UNINTENTIONALLY” — the board used all upper-case letters for emphasis.

The board said that unintentional act wouldn’t be considered a violation of the law. But the board did say that canceling the name improperly would be against the law.