In Iowa, a state judge in the second-largest county invalidated more than 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, siding with the Trump administration’s campaign that its elections commissioner overstepped his authority by pre-filling the ballots in with voters’ personal information.
What We Know:
- Judge Ian Thornhill of Linn County, home to Cedar Rapids, issued a temporary injunction ordering county auditor Joel Miller to notify voters in writing that the forms should not have been pre-filled with their information and therefore now cannot be processed. Instead, they’ll have to either fill out new requests for absentee ballots or vote in person at the polls on Election Day.
- The Trump campaign argued the forms requesting absentee ballots should have been left totally blank besides the election date and type. Local officials in Linn County, however, ignored those directions and sent out the applications with more information anyway. The forms were pre-filled with personal information, including names, dates of birth, and, most significantly, voter identification numbers.
- This ruling marks an initial victory for Trump’s challenges to the absentee voting procedures in three counties in Iowa, including Linn County. Iowa is expected to be an important, competitive state in the presidential race between Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
- “It is implausible to conclude that near-total completion of an absentee ballot application by the auditor is authorized under Iowa law where the legislature has specifically forbidden government officials from partially completing the same document,” Judge Thornhill wrote in his ruling. He ruled that Miller’s decision violated a “clear directive” from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who told county officials in July that absentee ballot request forms must be blank when mailed to voters. Republicans said the ruling holds the “rogue auditor” accountable and enhances voting security, while outraged Democrats called it an act of voter suppression.
- Miller, a Democrat, had said that his goal was to make it as easy as possible to vote absentee during a pandemic. But he agreed he would abide by the judge’s order and pledged to void the returned requests and send out new blank forms to voters next month.
- Absentee voting has become popular during the coronavirus pandemic as it allows voters to send their ballots by mail or drop them off at county offices to avoid the risks of crowded polling locations. In Iowa, it led to record turnout for the primary in June. But a few weeks later, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed new laws to make such voting harder. One law blocks auditors from using their databases to fill in voters’ four-digit voting identification numbers, a number few know and are routinely left blank on the forms. Instead, it requires auditors to contact voters directly, by either email or mail, and have them correct mistakes themselves. Supporters of the new law and ruling argued that requiring voters to fill out their own forms with voting ID numbers was a way to make absentee ballots more secure.
- Miller, along with the elections commissioners in Johnson and Woodbury counties, said contacting all voters who leave the information blank would be too burdensome as well as potentially disenfranchise people. That is why the decision was made to mail forms with that information already filled in. They contended that the law did not block them from doing so. Trump’s administration along with state and national Republican Party groups filed lawsuits against the three Iowa counties in an effort to invalidate all forms returned in response to the mailings.
- Thornhill’s ruling found that the Trump campaign and Republican groups had legal standing to bring the case as he found that they demonstrated a likelihood of being harmed because not all Iowa counties have the money to send out pre-filled absentee ballot requests. In his ruling, he said that Miller “knew the risk he was taking,” but emphasized that voters still have time to acquire absentee ballots in another manner and will not lose their right to vote because of it.
- Thornhill’s ruling for Linn County is the first so far. Another hearing is set for early this week in Woodbury County, where 14,000 of the absentee ballot requests have been returned and a hearing in Johnson County, where thousands more have been returned, is planned for later this week.
Those affected by the ruling must complete another absentee ballot application to receive their official ballots. The official ballots will not be sent out until Oct. 5.
