Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Iowa judge allows two voting ID requirements to stand, strikes two others

Iowa voting

An Iowa driver's license and a state ID Card will both still be acceptable forms of identification when showing up to vote.

Steve Pope/Getty Images

A law compelling Iowans to present a valid ID before voting, and another requiring a voter identification number on every absentee ballot request, have survived a court challenge.

But the same state judge who upheld those measures this week, Joseph Seidlin, also struck down two other provisions of a package enacted in 2017 in the name of combatting election fraud. One would have barred the use of an Iowa driver's license or state identification card to get a voter ID. The other would have allowed local election officials to block a voter if they believed in-person and on-file signatures didn't match.

The lawsuit was brought by the Hispanic civil rights group LULAC and an Iowa State University student and financed by the Democratic campaign group Priorities USA, who said all four provisions would suppress turnout and disenfranchise people — especially Latinos, who vote absentee in big numbers in a politically purple state that will have six hotly contested electoral votes next year.

"The evidence presented simply did not demonstrate that the burden on young voters, old voters, female voters, minority voters, poor voters and voters who are Democrats to show an approved form of identification at the polls is appreciably greater than the rest of the population," the judge said.


GOP Secretary of State Paul Pate said he was considering an appeal of the decision by Seidlin, who said the two provisions he struck down were in violation of the Iowa constitution.

The law was enacted two years ago, but in last year's midterm people who showed up at the polls without an ID were allowed to sign an affidavit promising they were who they said they were. About 11,000 did so. But starting next November, those lacking acceptable identification will have to cast a provisional ballot, then return with an ID within a few days for their ballot to count.

Iowa and 34 other states require an ID before voting, and half those states require a photo card, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. Proposals for photo ID requirements in Montana and Wyoming were rejected in those legislatures this year.

Read More

A person in a military uniform holding a gavel.

As the Trump administration redefines “Warrior Ethos,” U.S. military leaders face a crucial test: defend democracy or follow unlawful orders.

Getty Images, Liudmila Chernetska

Warrior Ethos or Rule of Law? The Military’s Defining Moment

Does Secretary Hegseth’s extraordinary summoning of hundreds of U.S. command generals and admirals to a Sept. 30 meeting and the repugnant reinstatement of Medals of Honor to 20 participants in the infamous 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre—in which 300 Lakota Sioux men, women, and children were killed—foreshadow the imposition of a twisted approach to U.S. “Warrior Ethos”? Should military leaders accept an ethos that ignores the rule of law?

Active duty and retired officers must trumpet a resounding: NO, that is not acceptable. And, we civilians must realize the stakes and join them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Yes, They Are Trying To Kill Us
Provided

Yes, They Are Trying To Kill Us

In the rush to “dismantle the administrative state,” some insist that freeing people from “burdensome bureaucracy” will unleash thriving. Will it? Let’s look together.

A century ago, bureaucracy was minimal. The 1920s followed a worldwide pandemic that killed an estimated 17.4–50 million people. While the virus spread, the Great War raged; we can still picture the dehumanizing use of mustard gas and trench warfare. When the war ended, the Roaring Twenties erupted as an antidote to grief. Despite Prohibition, life was a party—until the crash of 1929. The 1930s opened with a global depression, record joblessness, homelessness, and hunger. Despair spread faster than the pandemic had.

Keep ReadingShow less