By Stephen Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register
Des Moines, IA-Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is seeking to avoid a repeat of the chaotic weeks leading up to the 2024 election when hundreds of Iowans had their ballots challenged at the polls based on sometimes out of date information suggesting they might not be citizens.
Two weeks before Election Day, Pate, a Republican, instructed Iowa’s county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who had, at some point in the past, told the Iowa Department of Transportation they were not citizens. Hundreds of Iowans ultimately had to provide documentation of their citizenship to have their votes counted.
“I don’t want to repeat that,” Pate said Thursday. “That’s why we’re doing this bill. I want a better process.”
On Thursday, Senate Republicans advanced a new bill, introduced by Pate, that would give his office more authority to work with other government agencies to collect citizenship records and other voter information.
Sen. Jeff Reichman, R-Montrose, said Iowa has seen several elections come down to very small margins.
“We’ve seen six, 16, very regularly votes that are under 100 so any — any — lack of integrity in this voter roll needs to be eliminated,” he said. “So I’m glad to see this come forward.”
Sen. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, said Iowa already has several ways to vet individuals who register to vote.
“They go through a number of databases to assure that they are who they say they are and they live where they say they live and that they are a U.S. citizen,” she said. “They sign a verification that they are a citizen, subject to perjury and a felony. And so to give the impression that we are not looking at that already, I think is unfortunate.”
Secretary of state’s office would have more power to obtain data from other state, federal agencies
Senate Study Bill 1088 would allow the secretary of state to contract with “state and federal government agencies and private entities” to check voters’ records to determine whether they are eligible to cast a ballot.
Pate said that doesn’t mean outsourcing the state’s voter list to a third party. Instead, he said it’s about getting access to information from agencies like the DOT, the federal Social Security program and immigration officials so that his office can check that data against the state’s voter rolls.
Pate said his office recently received access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, a federal database that allows participating agencies to check voters’ citizenship, although he said he’s still pushing for the federal government to provide the information in a more user-friendly format.
“We hope that the federal government will do a better job and we’ll pull it from there as well,” he said. “But right now today, there is a lag. There’s a time period in there that it that makes it extremely challenging for us. And we’re trying to with this bill give us the ability to try to get that fixed.”
The bill would require the Iowa Department of Transportation to send the secretary of state’s office a list of everyone 17 years old and older who has submitted documentation to the DOT saying that they are not a citizen.
And the bill creates a new category of “unconfirmed” voter records for someone who election officials have “received information from a reliable source indicating that the registered voter is not qualified.”
Once the voter provides documentation affirming they are legally eligible to register, they will be designated as an active registered voter.
Poll workers could challenge voters on whether they’re citizens
Poll workers would be allowed to challenge a voter at the polls on the basis of their citizenship status.
Winckler said allowing poll workers to ask about someone’s citizenship status could allow for discrimination. She pointed to the fact that Iowa law already requires Iowans to attest that they are citizens when they register to vote.
“If you say that we have such integrity in our current process, and individuals sign the registration form identifying that they’re a citizen — subject to perjury and felony conviction — that asking at the polls if they are a citizen, that has already been vetted through your process,” she said. “And so that really borders on discrimination.”
Currently, Iowa law allows poll workers to challenge voters and ask them about where they maintain their home and how long they have lived there, whether they have a home anywhere else and their age.
A staffer for the secretary of state’s office told lawmakers the bill seeks to add citizenship because that is also one of the qualifications to vote in Iowa.
Pate said poll workers aren’t allowed to challenge someone’s ballot based on their appearance.
“When we talk about these questions, these are when they’re being challenged because there’s something that’s not consistent with the registration information,” he said.
The bill would also add the declaration, “I am a citizen of the United States” to the declaration of eligibility that all voters are required to sign at the polls.
In November, voters amended the Iowa Constitution to specify that “only a citizen of the United States” can vote in elections. Iowa and federal law already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in state and federal elections.
Election workers would have to reject provisional ballots of voters who don’t provide citizenship documentation
The bill also amends the criteria for when provisional ballots can be counted in Iowa.
Voters cast provisional ballots if they cannot prove their eligibility to vote, either due to their citizenship, their age, residency or another qualification. If the voter provides documentation to election workers within a week of the election proving they are eligible their ballot can be counted.
The bill specifies that voters who do not provide documentation by the deadline must have their provisional ballots rejected.
After the 2024 election, Polk County’s Absentee and Special Voters Precinct Board counted 94 provisional ballots from voters on Pate’s list of potential noncitizens. That included counting the votes of 48 voters who did not return to the auditor’s office to provide documentation of their citizenship.
Pate said Thursday that the Polk County board’s actions are the kind of thing the bill is intended to stop in the future.
House bill to put citizenship information on driver’s licenses ‘may be one tool in the toolbox,’ Pate says
House Republican lawmakers are advancing a bill that would require Iowans’ driver’s licenses to include whether or not they are a citizen in an effort to help poll workers determine if they are eligible to vote.
Pate said both his office and the DOT have been in touch with House lawmakers about the bill to share their thoughts and logistical concerns.
“It may be one tool in the toolbox, but it’s not the one solution,” he said.
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