Iowa counties may have illegally processed ‘mass voter challenges’

A vendor says some Iowa counties are processing systematic voter challenges shortly before an election, an action that would violate state and federal law. The ACLU is raising the alarm. And records show, the Iowa Secretary of State is “strongly suggesting” those counties reverse course.

The national ACLU and the ACLU of Iowa say counties are continuing to process voter roll purges before the November 5 election. In a letter to Iowa’s 99 county auditors and the Iowa Secretary of State, they explain how state and federal law mandates a freeze period ahead Election Day. During that period, voter registrations cannot legally be canceled, outside a few exemptions. 

“These appear to be the type of malicious, mass voter challenges by individuals and groups who want to disrupt the election,” ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said. “They are not based on any personal knowledge about voters, and they’re meant to create a false narrative about voter fraud. The strong safeguards in state and federal law against these efforts exist for a reason. It’s sad and frankly outrageous that these efforts may be taking place in Iowa.”

The letter references efforts in Johnson, Muscatine, and Pottawattamie counties where private parties outside of the government have asked election officials to cancel the registration of thousands of voters shortly before this November’s presidential election. These mass voter challenges by private parties should not be confused with the 2,022 registered voters that the Iowa Secretary State called on poll workers to challenge on Election Day. 

Iowa Code requires a 70-day freeze period ahead of Election Day for any voter registration challenges. Federal law requires a 90-day window. 

“These Iowa mass voter challenges are being submitted amid a rise in efforts around the country by groups looking to destabilize a fair and orderly course of the election by challenging voters’ eligibility on a massive scale, which we’re now seeing in Iowa,” a spokesperson for the ACLU said. “These unwarranted mass challenges ask election officials to remove a very large number of registered voters based on outside sources of outdated and unreliable information.”

The ACLU told county auditors to abide by the laws prohibiting removals right before an election when a voter has little time to prove their eligibility. It further asked them to reinstate any voters they may have improperly removed.

The Secretary of State’s Office did not return multiple requests for comment.

VoteShield catches potential violations

It all started when a state vendor alerted the Secretary of State that  a number of counties appeared to be processing challenge-related cancellations during the pre-election freeze period. The vendor VoteShield monitors voter registration data for anomalies. 

“If the information that we have is correct, and your county did process cancellations as part of a voter registration challenge, we strongly suggest your offices meet to discuss whether reversing those challenges until after election day is prudent,” an SOS elections administrator wrote in an email to county officials.

While there are exemptions, the freeze period both in state and federal law protects voters from being purged from rolls ahead of an election. 

Understanding the state and federal freeze periods

There are two buckets of issues that the national ACLU and ACLU of Iowa raised in their letter against these voter registration purges: issues with state and federal law.

Iowa Code says a voter registration challenge may be filed at any time. But it is more careful about challenges made close to an election. If the challenge is filed within 70 days of the election, it cannot be processed until after the election. 

Iowa Code has another exemption allowing a challenge to go forward—even within the 70-day window—so long as the voter in question registered within 20 days of the challenge dropping. 

“As we understand it, the voters who have been subjected to these mass challenges are typically longtime Iowa voters, not recent registrants,” the letter said. “…No such voter challenges may be processed and no challenged voters’ registrations may be canceled before the election.” 

Under the National Voter Registration Act, there are also some protections for voters against improper removal from the rolls. First, it prohibits any systematic voter list maintenance 90 days ahead of an election. That is any program which “removes the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.”

There are exceptions. The law allows election officials to remove a name from voter rolls when the registered voter themselves asks for removal. Other exemptions allow removal based on conviction of a felony, the death of the voter or a correction to the registration records.

The National Voter Registration Act’s quiet window for removal specifically applies to list maintenance programs “based on third-party challenges,” particularly challenges “derived from any large, computerized data-matching process.” 

“The bottom line is that, … Iowa law requires that these voter challenges should not be processed at all before the November 5, 2024 election,” the ACLU said. “Moreover, to the extent that certain removals have been or are being made in response to these voter challenges, these would be similarly prohibited during the federal 90-day quiet period under the (National Voter Registration Act).”