An election official says voters were improperly removed from Iowa’s voter rolls

DES MOINES, Iowa — Some Iowa voters were improperly removed from registration rolls by county election officials after complaints were made about their registration status too close to the election, Iowa’s top election official confirmed Wednesday.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said county auditors could address expulsions resulting from objections filed within 90 days of the election – a designated “quiet period” during which only limited changes to voter rolls can be made.

The secretary of state said his office has directed county auditors to contact their lawyers and get voters re-entered on the rolls. He said “most, if not all, counties” have done so.

“We will obviously monitor this situation again to make sure, but the issue has now been resolved and we hope it has been corrected,” he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and its Iowa chapter publicized the issue Tuesday, saying individuals contacted their organization after receiving notification from the district auditor that their registration status was being investigated due to the challenge.

Pate did not say how many voters were actually removed. The ACLU identified three counties that faced massive challenges. The Associated Press left messages with three district auditors seeking information.

The National Voter Registration Act requires a 90-day silent period before elections to maintain voter rolls so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls as a result of bureaucratic or last-minute mistakes that cannot be quickly corrected.

The Act also protects against removal of a voter due to a change of address unless the voter self-certifies the move or if the voter fails to respond to written notice and does not vote in two federal general elections.

Iowa law provides for a 70-day freeze period requiring most complaints about a voter’s registration status to be filed by Aug. 27.

“We are deeply concerned that auditors may have improperly removed some Iowa voters,” said Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa. “No action should have been taken” because of the mandatory silence period, she said.

Bettis Austen suggested that county auditors in at least three of Iowa’s 99 counties received mass election subpoenas that often relied on outdated or incomplete information based on comparisons of voter rolls with other databases. In a statement, it said they “appear to be a type of malicious, indiscriminate voter attack by individuals and groups seeking to disrupt the election,” but did not further specify their origins.

Election officials across the country are facing increased scrutiny over voter fraud in 2024 – the first presidential election following former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in 2020.

Also now, accusations that non-US citizens are registering to vote and voting have become a central theme of conservative campaigns across the country. It is illegal for non-US citizens to vote in federal elections, but there is no evidence that it happens in significant numbers, although dozens of cases have been reported in some states, including Iowa.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowed Virginia to resume voter registration purges that the state says are intended to prevent people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The Justice Department and a coalition of private groups sued Virginia earlier this month, arguing that state elections officials, acting under an executive order issued in August by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, were striking names from voter rolls in violation of quiet provisions of federal election law. period.

Last week, Pate sent Iowa County auditors a list of more than 2,000 names of people who told the state Department of Transportation they were not citizens but later registered to vote. On Wednesday, Pate acknowledged that these people may now be naturalized citizens and emphasized that they had not been removed from the rolls. Instead, election workers will question their ballots and voters will have seven days to prove their citizenship status.