Primghar, Iowa — After a poll worker in one Iowa county turned away a voter who didn’t bring an ID to the poll for a special school board election on Tuesday, auditors are saying training and software should prevent the issue.
The woman arrived at the polling place in Washington County without her driver’s license. She wasn’t allowed to sign an affidavit attesting to her identity, which the new law allows this year. Washington County Auditor Dan Widmer says the poll workers made a mistake pure and simple.
The head of the County Attorneys Association says counties should be training workers ahead of special elections, just as they do before primary and general elections. But according to law, the training before special elections is optional.
We asked O’Brien County Auditor Barb Rohwer what measures were in place to make sure that people are not wrongly denied the right to vote.
Rohwer says the law will be changing next year.
She tells us that for the rest of this year only, if you sign an oath, you will be allowed to vote, and your vote will count without having to go through the provisional ballot process.
She says that while you won’t be able to vouch for yourself next year and going forward, you will still be able to have someone who did bring their ID attest for you and you will still be able to vote without going through the provisional ballot process.
Even if no one can attest for you in 2019 and beyond, if you don’t have an ID with you, they’ll let you cast a provisional ballot, says Rohwer. And then it’s up to you to follow up and make sure the vote counts. But you will need an ID to make that happen.
Rohwer tells us why they like the software from the Secretary of State’s office.
She tells us that really they haven’t had any problem with people showing their ID to vote in O’Brien County. In fact, she says that people are surprised that they haven’t needed to show their ID before.
The Iowa Secretary of State’s office is sending out replacement voter registration cards to some Iowa voters clarifying that an ID is not required for voting in Iowa until next year.
The League of United Latin American Citizens challenged the constitutionality of three provisions of the new voter law this year and a Polk County judge granted an injunction blocking provisions of the law until the case can be heard in court. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld portions of the injunction — against using signature matching and voter verification numbers for absentee ballots. The court also kept in place a ban on the Iowa Secretary of State using language that says voters are required to show an ID for an absentee ballot or saying an ID is required for voting in 2018. The Supreme Court did reverse the part of the injunction blocking the reduction of the early voting period from 40 to 29 days, so the early voting period will be 29 days going forward.
