Linn auditor: Voters in motels are no reason for voter ID law

CEDAR RAPIDS - Voters listing motels as their addresses on voter registration documents isn't evidence of voter fraud, Linn County Auditor Joel Miller said Friday.

Miller said Iowa Republicans are wrong to cite motel listings on voter registration records in their push to require Iowa voters to present photo identification at polling places. To prove his point, Miller was traveling to motels throughout the county to verify that voters who say they live in those motels are actually there.

“In fact, as I'm finding, we do have people legitimately living in hotels and motels and registered to vote appropriately and there's nothing wrong with that,” he said before doing a check at Ced Rel Motel outside Cedar Rapids on Friday afternoon.

Rep. Renee Schulte, R-Cedar Rapids, has led Republican legislators' charge to pass voter ID legislation. The measure, approved by the House last month, would require voters to show state-issued photo identification before they're allowed to cast ballots.

Requiring a photo ID is “not new, not cutting edge,” Schulte said before the bill's passage in the House. Twenty-seven states have some kind of voter ID requirement, but only two require a photo ID.

Opponents of the legislation - including many county auditors - point out voter fraud is nearly nonexistent.

“We've never proven someone has come in and cast an impostor vote for somebody else,” Miller said.

The voter ID requirement would cost money to implement because the state would have to offer IDs to voters who don't already have them. Still, some Democrats in the Legislature worry the law would disenfranchise voters.