Iowa Voters Were Improperly Removed From Rolls, Says Top Election Official

Iowa voters were improperly removed from registration rolls ahead of the November 5 election, the state’s top election official confirmed Wednesday.

County auditors may have removed voters from the rolls after challenges to their registration status were filed too close to the upcoming election, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said.

Pate said his office directed county auditors to get the voters put back on the rolls and said “most, if not all those counties” have done so.

“Clearly we’re going to be following back up on that to make sure, but it has been addressed, and we hope that it’s been corrected,” he said.

Details on Iowa’s Voter Rolls

On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its Iowa affiliate said that individuals contacted their organization after being told by their county auditor that their registration status was being investigated because of a challenge.

The ACLU identified three counties—out of Iowa’s 99 counties—that had mass challenges to voters’ registration statuses. Pate did not say the exact number of voters removed from the rolls. The Associated Press contacted the three county auditors the ACLU identified for comment.

What Does the Law Say?

There is a 90-day quiet period under the National Voter Registration Act in which only limited changes can be made to voter rolls. The quiet period is so that legitimate voters are not removed from the rolls by bureaucratic errors or last-minute mistakes that cannot be quickly fixed.

Iowa also has its own law with a 70-day freeze period that requires most challenges to voter registration statuses to be filed before August 27.

‘Deeply Concerning’

Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa, called county auditors’ removal of voters from rolls so close to the election “deeply concerning.”

“It is deeply concerning to us that auditors may have improperly removed some Iowa voters,” Austen said, adding that “no action should have been taken” because of the required quiet period.

Austen went as far as to suggest that mass voter challenges in Iowa “appear to be the type of malicious, mass voter challenges by individuals and groups who want to disrupt the election.”

Newsweek reached out to Pate’s office via email on Wednesday evening for comment.

Election officials across the nation are facing increased scrutiny this election after former President Donald Trump, the current GOP presidential nominee, spread claims of widespread voter fraud in the wake of his 2020 election loss to now-President Joe Biden. There is no evidence to support Trump’s claims.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.