Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Iowa provides double dose of defeat for voter advocates

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds

Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has been pushing to expand voting rights for convicted felons but the GOP-controlled state Senate adjourned Sunday without approving a constitutional amendment along those lines.

Joshua Lott/Getty Images

The weekend brought two setbacks for the expansion of voting rights in Iowa.

The Republicans who control the General Assembly cleared legislation requiring voters to provide identification in order to obtain absentee ballots. But the legislators went home for the year Sunday without taking an expected vote on restoring the franchise to convicted felons.

The debates over mail-in voting and ex-convicts' political rights have been intensifying nationwide, spurred by the coronavirus and nationwide protests over racial injustice. Iowa has taken some steps this year to make remote voting easier because of the pandemic, but it's the only state where felons are forever barred from the voting booth.


Democrats are looking to make it easier to use mailed ballots as a turnout magnifier, especially during the pandemic, and say felons who have done their time deserve to be full-fledged members of civil life. Republicans say loose rules on absentee voting create opportunity for fraud, and many say felons' repayment of debt to society should include tough hurdles to voting.

The voter ID language, inserted at the last minute Sunday on a must-pass annual budget bill, would require voters to provide proof of identification if they go to their county office to cast ballots before Election Day. Another provision says that, if a voter provides incomplete or incorrect information when applying for a mail-in ballot, counties would be required to contact the voter first by telephone and email, then by regular mail, rather than using an existing registration database to fill in the blanks.

"The intent of this is to ensure that the person that actually wants a ballot is the person that gets a ballot. This is not voter suppression, no matter how many times you say it," said GOP state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, according to the Des Moines Register.

Attorney Marc Elias, who has filed numerous voting rights lawsuits on behalf of Democrats nationwide, called the legislation "ridiculous" and said "these unnecessary burdens on voting will only suppress voters and make it more difficult for county officials to send out absentee ballots."

On felon voting rights, the Republican-controlled Senate did not act despite the support for the idea by GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Earlier she had signed legislation demanded by her fellow Republicans requiring that felons pay their restitution before being allowed to vote.

That was thought to be part of a deal that would ensure the advancing of a state constitutional amendment, which still would have required a second approval by the Legislature in the next two years before being placed before the voters. The setback means the earliest day for such a referendum has been pushed back two years, to 2024.

Iowa is considered to have the most restrictive rules about convicted felons and voting of any state, permanently disenfranchising them unless they go through a complicated restoration process and get approval from the governor.

Some expect that Reynolds may pursue an executive order to immediately restore felon voting rights.

Read More

Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

"On Las Vegas Boulevard" sign.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash. Unplash+ license obtained by IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths.

Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

CARSON CITY, NEV. - A surprise last-minute bill to open primary elections to Nevada’s largest voting bloc, registered unaffiliated voters, moved quickly through the state legislature and was approved by a majority of lawmakers on the last day of the legislative session Monday.

The bill, AB597, allows voters not registered with a political party to pick between a Republican and Democratic primary ballot in future election cycles. It does not apply to the state’s presidential preference elections, which would remain closed to registered party members.

Keep ReadingShow less
Voter registration

In April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape.

SDI Productions

The SAVE Act: Addressing a Non-Existent Problem at the Cost of Voter Access?

In July 2024, I wrote about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act when it was first introduced in Congress. And Sarah and I discussed it in an episode of Beyond the Bill Number which you can still listen to. Now, in April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape. It's time to revisit this legislation and examine its implications for American voters.

Read the IssueVoter analysis of the bill here for further insight and commentary.

Keep ReadingShow less
Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less