The Iowa House of Representatives passed two election-related bills Tuesday that would overhaul the recount process and add methods of checking voters’ citizenship status, among other changes.
Many Iowa election officials and lawmakers have been calling for changes to election recounts for years.
Under current law, recounts are conducted by a three-member board in each county—with one member chosen by each candidate, and the third chosen by the other two members of the board. The chief judge of the district picks the third member if they can’t agree.
The bill would instead put county auditors in charge of election recounts. They would choose a politically-balanced group of their staff, with the option to include poll workers, to conduct recounts. The candidates could select people to observe the process.
Rep. Austin Harris, R-Moulton, said the changes will ensure political campaigns can’t manipulate the recount system.
“These fixes will bring consistency, reliability, fairness, uniformity and enforcement, creating a fair process to recount our elections and for our citizens — no matter their political party — to have faith and trust that despite a close election, the result is accurate.”
Recounts would have to be done with vote-counting machines, but the secretary of state could order a hand count due to “extraordinary circumstances.”
Rep. Adam Zabner, D-Iowa City, said the recount system needs changes, and he likes some parts of the bill. But he said he’s concerned voters might question decisions made elected county auditors during a recount.
“We’ve seen, when this process takes place, that there’s oftentimes disagreements about how to count these ballots,” Zabner said. “My concern is that I would much rather have that disagreement decided by a three-member board, one from each party and an independent or neutral member, than by a partisan elected official.”
Harris said if county auditors can be trusted to conduct elections, they can also be trusted to conduct recounts.
The bill would also only allow recounts if the election results are very close.
For statewide and federal offices, the difference between votes cast for the apparent winner and the recount requester must be less than 0.15%. For all other elections, the difference would have to be less than 1% or 50 votes.
“We have to keep in mind that when we request a recount, we’re essentially asserting that the initial result was wrong, and I think that we have to have a high standard to be able to do that,” Harris said.
Under the bill, recounts would have to be done with vote-counting machines, but the secretary of state could order a hand count due to “extraordinary circumstances.”
The bill passed 66-31, with all Republicans and one Democrat voting for the bill.
Verifying voters’ citizenship status
The second election bill passed by the House Tuesday includes a proposal from Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate that aims to ensure people who are not U.S. citizens are not voting in Iowa’s elections.
Shortly before the 2024 election, Pate ordered poll workers to challenge the ballots of more than 2,000 registered voters suspected to be noncitizens. Last week, Pate announced about 277 noncitizens were found on Iowa’s voter registration list, 40 of them voted, and 35 of those ballots were counted in the 2024 general election.
Harris said in the past few general elections, there have been four legislative and congressional races that were separated by 35 votes or fewer.
“Just one illegal vote is an attack on all of our votes.”Rep. Austin Harris
“Just one illegal vote is an attack on all of our votes,” he said. “To me, it threatens what it means to be an American.”
Harris said the bill would give the state more tools to verify a registered voter’s citizenship status.
It would specify that the state can contract with and use data from federal, state and private entities to help verify the eligibility of voters.
The bill would also require the Iowa Department of Transportation to send the secretary of state’s office a list of all people 17 or older who indicated on DOT paperwork that they are not a U.S. citizen. Pate’s office would have to compare that list to the voter rolls.
The bill would create a new voter registration status of “unconfirmed.” That would apply when election officials get “information from a reliable source” that the voter isn’t a citizen. An unconfirmed voter could become an active voter by providing evidence that they are eligible to vote.
Under the bill, a voter’s registration would be canceled if they tell any state or federal agency they are not a citizen. It would also allow a poll worker to question a person about their citizenship status if their vote is challenged on that basis.
Democrats did not comment on this proposal during debate.
Banning ranked choice voting
The bill would also ban the use of ranked choice voting in Iowa.
Rep. Amy Wichtendahl, D-Hiawatha, said no local governments in Iowa use ranked choice voting, but she doesn’t see why the state should prevent them from doing so.
“Allow ranked choice voting in municipal elections ensures that the winner has the majority support of the voters, and… it does save money,” she said.
Wichtendahl noted the City of Cedar Rapids could avoid runoff elections in its mayoral races if it adopted ranked choice voting.
Harris said local governments would have to spend money to change vote-counting machines to be able to handle ranked choice voting, among other issues.
“This procedure would cause us to take days to figure out the results, if not weeks,” he said. “It would certainly be a heavy lift to inform the public on how this new system would work, and I think certainly cause some confusion.”
About 50 jurisdictions in the country have ranked choice voting.
Changing the definition of political party
Another measure in the bill would raise the threshold for a political party to be designated as a major party under state law.
Currently, a party becomes an official political party if it gets at least 2% of the vote in Iowa for president or governor. The Libertarian Party of Iowa has achieved that in the past.
The bill would require a party to get 2% of the vote in three general elections in a row.
Zabner said Iowans are fed up with the two-party system. He said the bill would make it harder for alternatives to Republicans and Democrats to run for office.
“It limits the options of Iowans,” Zabner said. “It boxes out competition. And it begs the question, what is the majority party scared of?”
The bill, including citizenship checks, the ranked choice voting ban, and political party definition changes, passed with a party-line vote of 65 to 31. Both bills now go to the Senate for consideration.
