- Provides for photo ID
- Cuts eleven days off vote-by-mail but other good-government reasons to restrict it are left wanting
- Single box straight ticket voting by party eliminated
Linked below is the apparent text of the voting administration revisions bill as found on the Iowa Legislature website. The legislature’s site is not user-friendly, employs unnecessary jargon, is clumsy at getting to the most common citizen inquiries, seems to relish in obscurity. The glossary of terms provided is a separate function rather than providing active links to the terms when used. Getting definitive clarity as to legislators votes even a clear indication of the final result as passed can be frustrating or unsure. With that said as linked below is what seems to be the result. Note from the title of the bill that it includes administrative processes but we note that within the text much is still left to local election officials. The text refers to language as it passed the House. We presume from the linage and gobbledygook that it is at least close to as passed by the Senate as well. Newspaper links imply that is the case.
https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=87&ba=HF%20516
An Act relating to the conduct and administration of elections, 1 including voter registration, absentee voting, voter 2 identity verification, signature verification, polling place 3 prohibitions, commissioner duties and certifications, voter 4 misconduct information and reporting, straight party voting, 5 and post-election audits, creating an electronic poll book 6 and polling place technology revolving loan fund, providing 7 penalties, and including effective date and applicability 8 provisions.
Here are two news reports describing key results as the bill passed the legislature:
From The Hill: Iowa passes voting reform package
From the Des Moines Register: Voter ID bill gets Iowa Senate OK after contentious debate
The Democrat narrative that voter ID is discriminatory because somehow minorities don’t have ID and can’t get them even though it takes no more effort for them to get one than anyone else is rarely analysed in the dominant liberal media. It rarely occurs to the reporters to ask the question of the Democrat critics ~~ what statistics prove that the poor are in any way significantly inhibited from obtaining a photo ID even without subsidy or accommodation, verses pure lack of desire? If one has no gumption to obtain the preferred identification we question such voters mental capacity.
How could it be discriminatory as regards minorities if the law affects everyone, and how something provided free or subsidized is discriminatory as to helping ensure the integrity of the vote? Further, how good government principles should not apply to minorities or the poor, and why they should be immune from complying with reasonable voter integrity laws is not addressed in the dominant liberal “news” articles. That Iowa’s law before and in the new amendments provides for provisional voting for those without proper identification is mentioned but it has not ended the accusations and insinuations from the same liberal press.
Much is made by Democrats and the usual suspects in the press that voter fraud is rare and therefore any good government and integrity restrictions are unnecessary. The few prosecutions for voter fraud are trotted out as evidence of the lack of fraud (more on this in a later post).
But such reasoning has as much validity as pointing out that because about 2% of shoplifting is caught, (and less prosecuted) that “with so little proof that shoplifting goes on it really isn’t a big problem” — “inventory shortages” could be for any number of reasons. The truth is it is much easier to catch a shoplifter than it is to catch voter fraud because of the required secrecy for voting (a good thing) and poor ‘inventory controls” as compared to retail businesses (lists of eligibility that are ridiculously not updated) and heretofore allowing sloppy procedures at the check-out counter (at the booth) compared to retail. By its nature voting integrity requires prevention of fraud to be most effective because you can’t take back votes cast, you can stolen merchandise.
Photo voter ID will help on voting day at the booth but the greater problem with fraud and good government aspects of voting is the move toward vote by mail, now nearing half of voting. The new Iowa legislation has barely inhibited that if at all. The eleven days removed from the vote by mail time-period still provides for a month for the damnedest skullduggery in that regard and voting before most debates are held. The later is a good government atrocity. The return to vote by mail privileges limited to the infirm, the military and limited out of area travel should be the policy. We note that voter turn-out was greater in those days. Assuring the integrity of the vote at the time of registration is also a matter inadequately addressed across the country. It is key to preventing voter fraud and catching it. Motor voter registration is made to order for ineligible registration.
The elimination of straight ticket voting is appropriate as it helps to get voters to at least scan the ballot and maybe “turn the page” for elections that are supposedly not partisan in nature. We anticipate that trends toward “non-partisan” elections will be given second thought as the more people “turn the page” the more they will want to have an inkling of political philosophy. We would like to see such an inkling as regards judges, it could not be worse than the current subterfuge, inattention and rubber stamping of incumbents in “non-partisan” races and judicial retention voting.
R Mall
