Iowa voters can start asking for early ballots

At this time is the primary day voters can request ballots; the early voting interval begins Oct. 19

Republican Emma Nemecek of Mount Vernon takes a stack of opened envelopes from Democrat Lois Hoper of Cedar Rapids as absentee ballots are opened on the Jean Oxley Public Service Heart in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 31, 2020. (Cliff Jette/Freelance)

DES MOINES — The primary steps to casting votes on this fall’s midterm elections in Iowa are being taken at this time.

At this time is the primary day Iowans can request an early poll be despatched to their dwelling.

The early voting interval in Iowa — when Iowans can truly forged votes — begins Oct. 19. On that day, county auditors — the native elections officers — will mail absentee ballots to voters who’ve requested one.

Oct. 19 is also the day that Iowans can vote early in-person at native elections workplaces.

“It’s vital to have a plan relating to voting. You’ve got a number of choices obtainable,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, the state’s prime elections official, stated in a information launch.

Absentee ballots have to be accomplished and obtained by native elections officers on Election Day, which is Tuesday, Nov. 8. Any ballots which might be obtained after that date — regardless of once they have been mailed — won’t be counted, with restricted exceptions.

That tough deadline is one in all a number of adjustments to state legislation enacted in recent times by the Republican-majority Iowa Legislature that positioned new and important restrictions on the state’s early voting window and course of.

The timeframe by which Iowans can forged an early vote has been slashed by half, from 40 days to twenty. And the time-frame by which ballots might be mailed to a voter who requested one after which returned to and obtained by the native elections workplace additionally has been reduce practically in half, from 36 days to twenty.

Additionally, the choices for a way and the place to return an early poll have been considerably lowered. Underneath current adjustments to state legislation, poll drop bins could also be positioned solely outdoors the native elections workplace, further satellite tv for pc and early voting places can solely be established upon voters’ request, and solely the voter can return his or her absentee poll to the native elections workplace, with restricted exceptions.

Republicans who handed the brand new restrictions say they have been wanted as a way to protect the integrity of election outcomes, although early voting fraud is extraordinarily uncommon.

Democrats criticized the restrictions as an effort to restrict the variety of Iowans who vote early, a bloc that traditionally has skewed Democratic.

Nevertheless, the brand new restrictions haven’t but lowered early voting in Iowa’s elections.

Within the 2020 presidential election, Iowa set total turnout and early voting information — though the foundations have been relaxed for that election to accommodate voters through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And within the state’s major elections this June, early voting hit the second-highest whole ever for a major election, second solely to the 2020 major.

Absentee poll request varieties can be found on the Iowa Secretary of State’s web site. The shape might be downloaded, after which have to be accomplished and mailed or delivered to the native elections workplace.

Feedback: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com