KDSN RADIO News
Iowa election law changes headed to governor
A bill on its way to the governor’s desk would give Iowa election officials more ways to check the citizenship of registered voters.
Senator Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa, said Iowa needs to update election laws to deal with new challenges. “In the most recent election, we learned about one of those new challenges when 40 non-citizens voted,” Rozenboom said, “and 35 of those votes were counted.”
The bill gives Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate the authority to hire a vendor to check the citizenship status of people who’ve registered to vote. Democrats say the bill has major flaws. For example, Senator Matt Black, a Democrat from Johnston, said the bill doesn’t provide enough guidance to precinct workers who may challenge the citizenship status of registered voters trying to cast a ballot on Election Day.
“To me, this opens the door to suppression of the vote throughout the state,” Blake said. “…Adding the question of whether somebody is a citizen…I don’t know, I don’t carry around my birth certificate.”
Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner of Iowa City said year after year, Republicans keep changing the rules for Iowa’s election system. “It’s not broken,” Weiner said. “Let Iowans vote.”
Rozenboom, responding to Democrats’ criticism at the close of debate, said the changes are necessary to ”maintain trust” in Iowa elections.
The bill makes several other election changes. It bans ranked-choice voting and makes it harder for third-party candidates to run for office. It includes a “sore loser” clause, so candidates who lose in a party primary cannot run as an independent or as a different party’s nominee in the General Election.
