‘Fixes’ in election integrity bill not needed, speakers tell lawmakers

DES MOINES - The problems to be solved by an election bill under consideration by Iowa lawmakers don't exist and are not likely to be issues in the future, either, speakers told a House panel Monday.

'We don't understand what problem you are trying to fix,” Connie Ryan of the Interfaith Alliance for Iowa Action Fund told an Iowa House State Government Committee panel.

Specifically, she said, the alliance opposes the bill because of its proposed signature verification and voter identification requirements.

'When the people go to the polls and they have to prove who they are, that goes against the grain of what we are as a nation,” she said. 'We don't have a voter fraud issue in the state of Iowa and it makes no sense to put in provisions that would limit people's ability to vote.”

State Government Committee Chairman Ken Rizer, R-Cedar Rapids, has acknowledged voter fraud is not a large problem in Iowa. But he rejects the argument that is reason enough to stop going ahead with the bill.

'If Iowa wants to remain a state with the most secure elections, then changes proposed in HSB 93 are needed to protect election integrity,” he wrote in a newsletter to constituents.

Rizer said that HSB 93, which the State Government Committee will take up Tuesday, would strengthen Iowa's election integrity, encourage the use of new voting technology, provide a system of checks and balances to ensure voter identity fraud is not occurring and align some of Iowa's voting regulations with many of the state's Midwestern neighbors 'all without suppressing or infringing voter rights.”

However, speakers at the hearing weren't convinced of the need or that HSB 93 wouldn't suppress voting.

Although there is a 'gut level” feeling that voter impersonation is rampant in Iowa, Myrna Loehrlein of the League of Women Voters said studies do not bear out those fears.

There needs to be some provision of replacement for voter ID documents in case they are lost or stolen, Loehrlein said. That was a concern for Laura Hessburg of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, who said abusers often take or destroy personal documents.

Loehrlein was one of several speakers to oppose the signature verification language in HSB 93. Signatures change over time due to age and disability, she said, and there are no safeguards in the bill to prevent poll workers from targeting specific voters - people of color, for example.

The bill addresses a problem that likely will never exist, added Bill Brauch, a former Iowa assistant attorney general who helped write the state's identity theft law.

He warned that the plan to mail voter ID cards to the 85,000 Iowans without other accepted forms of voter ID 'is a potential danger” if the cards are mailed to outdated addresses where the voter no longer lives, he said.

Lawmakers also heard from One Iowa Action Fund that transgender Iowans would face barriers because their IDs may not accurately reflect their gender.

The ACLU-Iowa warned HSB 93 would erect barriers for African American voters. Nationally, about 25 percent of African Americans do not have acceptable voter IDs, Daniel Zeno said. In Black Hawk County, 27 percent lack adequate IDs. In Scott County, it's about 24 percent.

Speakers did not offer only criticism. Any Campbell, a lobbyist for the League of Women Voters, AARP and disability groups, thanked the Secretary of State Office for reaching out to the league. She also liked provisions calling for the expansion of e-pollbooks and postelection audits.

However, she tempered her compliments by asking lawmakers to proceed more slowly by updating the current system to ensure the information is accurate and to make the voter experience better.

A public hearing on HSB 93 will be scheduled later, Rizer said.

l Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com