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Iowans wrongly labeled as felons are being denied ballots

Kim Reynolds

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds had urged the state Legislature to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences.

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Iowa needs to work harder to clean up voter rolls that wrongly list people as felons, two voter advocacy groups say.

So many misidentified people have been prevented from voting in this decade that the Justice Department should consider sanctioning the state, the Brennan Center for Justice and the League of Women Voters of Iowa contend. Their warning was delivered in writing to Secretary of State Paul Pate in June and was reported last week by the Des Moines Register.

Iowa has one of the country's strictest rules on felon voting: They may not go to the polls unless they're pardoned by the governor or the president. GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds unsuccessfully pushed this year for the legislature to restore voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences.


Iowa put nearly 2,600 citizens back on the rolls in 2016 after errors were discovered, but the newspaper found dozens of wrong rejections in just six counties before the midterm election. Pate said he was working to correct the problems.

The denials would apply in primaries but would not affect the state's first-in-the-nation, party-managed caucuses in February.

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Become an informed voter – it’s the best way to fight voter suppression

Harris is director of media engagement at Stand Up America.

This is National Voter Education Week, when activists and organizations across the country mobilize to educate voters on how to make their voices heard in November. This year, that mission is more important than ever. While voting rights advocates are hard at work helping voters find their polling location and voting options, learn what’s on their ballot, and make a plan for voting, MAGA politicians are ramping up efforts to make it more difficult to vote and even purging voter rolls in battleground states.

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On Sept. 17, Georgia’s election board voted to hand-count all ballots cast at polling places across the state’s 159 counties on Election Day, contrary to the legal opinion of the Georgia attorney general and the advice of the secretary of state.

Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, challenged the validity of the decision in a letter to the elections board:

"There are thus no provisions in the statutes cited in support of these proposed rules that permit counting the number of ballots by hand at the precinct level prior to delivery to the election superintendent for tabulation. Accordingly, these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute — and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do."
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Last week, the Ohio Ballot Board finalized the language of Issue 1, a constitutional amendment dealing with how the state’s political boundary maps are drawn.

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Ranked-choice voting is heading for its biggest year ever

Hill was policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote and political reform director at New America. You can reach him on X @StevenHill1776.

The Spirit of 2024 may soon manifest as “the best of times and the worst of times.”

This could end up being the year that Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office and rules with a vengeful wrath, further eroding America’s democratic institutions and our standing in the world. And 2024 could end up being the breakout year for ranked-choice voting, the most popular political reform in the United States.

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Speaker Mike Johnson (right) and Rep. Chip Roy conduct a news conference at the Capitol to introduce the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act on May 8.

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A bipartisan take on the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act

Lempert is an intern with the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Democracy Program. Orey is director of the Elections Project at BPC. Weil is executive director of BPC’s Democracy Program.

The House of Representatives recently passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act. Introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), the SAVE Act requires individuals to provide documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The bill has not advanced through the Senate.

Both parties agree that voter registration should permit all eligible citizens — and only eligible citizens — to register and vote. Although instances of noncitizen registration and voting are rare, the SAVE Act’s goal of ensuring that only citizens can register to vote is important. But there are easier, more cost-effective ways to improve voter registration that don’t create new barriers for eligible voters.

Here’s what you need to know about requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

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