County Auditor Gives Election Bill Mixed Review

Iowa voters will have fewer days to cast an early or absentee ballot and one less hour on Election Day to go to the polls in future elections under stipulations of a bill passed last week by both houses of the Iowa State Legislature.

Under some key provisions of the “Election Integrity Bill,” polls on Election Day will now close across the state at 8 p.m. (previously, polls closed at 9 p.m. for general elections), the window for early/absentee balloting is reduced from 29 to 20 days, mail-in ballots must be received by county election officials by the time polls close on Election Day and county auditors will only be allowed to send out absentee ballot request forms to voters who make a proper request.  The legislation also puts tighter restrictions in place concerning who can deliver or return a voter’s absentee ballot and each county will be restricted to having one ballot drop box (which must be under constant surveillance). The bill also guarantees workers at least two consecutive hours off to vote on Election Day.

Passage of the bill was a high priority for Republicans, who control both the House and Senate. They argued the bill would improve the voting process and make election officials more accountable. Democrats say the changes are an attempt to suppress voter turnout, particularly those who cast an early or absentee ballot, including the elderly and persons with disabilities.

“The bill ensures the integrity of the election in several ways, but one of the most important  is confirming that election officials are held to a higher standard of performance and establishing recourse for when an elected official defies the laws of the state or does not act in the best interest of the voter,” said. Rep. David Sieck (R-District 23) of Glenwood in his weekly newsletter.  “During the pandemic and as more and more Iowans are voting by absentee ballots, it is important that the accuracy and validity of each absentee ballot is secured.”

Mills County Auditor Carol Robertson, a past president of the Iowa State Association of County Auditors and a member of the organization’s executive board, gave the bill a mixed review.

“As with any bill, there’s the good and the bad that is attached to it,” Robertson, a Republican, said. “The good thing I thought out of it is the polls are going to close at 8 o’clock. That’s huge. We’ve been asking for that forever.

“It’s one hour less that my poll workers have to work. We don’t really have a lot of traffic between 8 and 9. When you get a lot of elderly poll workers, that’s a 14-hour day. They have to be there at 6 and don’t get out of there until 9:30 or 10 o’clock some times. It just shortens that day down by one hour.”

The shortening of the early/absentee voting window and the additional paperwork required when ballots are collected from a drop box will put greater stress on election officials and county auditor staff, Robertson said. Her biggest concern with the legislation, however, is the potential fines and penalties that could be imposed against county auditors or staff members who are cited for an “infraction.” Fines could be as high as $10,000, she noted.

“How are you going to keep people wanting to be auditors and handling this sort of thing if they receive an infraction for doing something they didn’t do intentionally?” Robertson said.

Robertson said she has shared her concerns about some of the vague language in the bill with Sieck and State Sen. Mark Costello (R-District 12). She said the bill is unclear in defining an “infraction.”

Robertson added that she believes the legislation was prioritized by legislators who were unhappy with some county auditors in the state that sent out absentee ballot requests last year that already had a voter’s name and personal identification information printed on the application form.

Passage of the bill comes less than four months after Iowa set a general election record for voter participation.  Nearly 1.7 million Iowans, 76 percent of the state’s registered voters, took part in the November general election. The majority of votes were cast early or absentee.

In separate interviews, Sieck and Robertson agreed the bill was initiated in part to claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden .

“It’s coming down from the feds because of how the presidential election came out,” Robertson said. “They want to streamline it for everybody with the assumption that with absentee voting, you’re going to have all of this fraud, etc. That’s where it’s all coming from.”

Sieck and Robertson said they’ve heard of a few isolated cases of alleged voting improprieties in Iowa, but nothing widespread.

State and federal judges have dismissed more than 50 election-related lawsuits presented by Trump’s legal team since the November election.