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Iowa Politics with Jeff Stein — Wed. Feb. 24, 2021

By Tim Martin Feb 24, 2021 | 5:46 AM
What About Election Day?
 
There are proposals making their way through the Iowa legislature to shorten the number of days in advance of election day when you can go and vote. By the time you hear this, they may have passed today.
 
The concept that we ever had more than just “election day” for in-person voting is still hard for me to understand. A few years ago, it was greatly expanded, allowing in-person voting a full 40 days—more than a month—before election day. It was contracted a bit to 28 days, and now the proposal is to cut that to 21 or so, a full three week window.
 
Some county auditors in populous areas are hopping mad, saying there’s been no evidence of malfeasance in Iowa, so why make the changes? The Johnson County auditor said in media interviews he can sum up the move in two words: voter suppression.
 
He’s flat out wrong, and I can sum it up in two other words: election integrity.
 
We have lower confidence in the veracity of our voting tabulation now than I can ever recall…and while Iowa has been vigilant about running a fair election, in light of what we’ve seen across the country of late, why wouldn’t we want to improve on our system, tighten up the areas where there’s a potential for fraud?
 
Auditors in Johnson, Linn, and Woodbury all suppressed voting much more than this proposal, by their efforts to send out improper absentee ballot request forms last year…efforts that more than one judge said were against the law, resulting in voters having to resubmit correct forms.
 
I’d feel far better if we tightened up the window for voting…frankly, election day is enough for me…and standardized each county’s voting systems to avoid things like Dominion voting machines, which we do have in some counties.
 
Just because Republicans suggested the changes doesn’t mean it’s voter suppression…and I’ll even say that just because Democrats resist doesn’t mean they think the current rules will allow them to steal elections.
 
We play it fair in Iowa…and anything we can do to improve on that is welcome, regardless of whose idea it is.

News/Talk 1540 KXEL · Iowa Politics — Wed. Feb. 24, 2021