Time for Iowa to let go of its commitment to second class citizenship

Kari Bassett has not missed voting since she started at the age of 20. But this year, she almost missed her opportunity. A friend in St. Louis was purged from voting rolls and this prompted Bassett to check her registration status. “I did all the right things. I moved after the last election, so I had marked ‘update voter registration’ on my change of address form and when I got my new driver's license with my updated address.” Had Bassett not checked, she could have missed the narrow window to re-register, and not been able to vote in a year with high stakes school board elections. “My family voted — I remember going to vote with my mom in the booths with the curtains, it is something I want to model for my child.”

Bassett is one of approximately 1.5 million active registered voters in Iowa. Iowa has seen this number decrease drastically since the passage of SF413. In February 2021, weeks before the bill was signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, 74,000 Iowans were inactive. Two years later in February 2023, 280,000 were inactive, largely due to voters being marked inactive for missing a single election.

These first steps to eventual purge are one of many efforts to suppress votes in Iowa. Joe Henry of the League of United Latin American Citizens has been organizing and advocating for voter rights for decades. “I grew up in a household that was poor working class with a single parent. My mom always read the newspaper. I was the first to go to college and I felt (it was important to be) committed to the social justice movement.” Henry described why he was passionate about voting rights, and then ticked off the efforts to suppress votes in Iowa, such as “restriction on early voting [and] reduction of hours to vote on Election Day.”

We have seen wide coverage of these efforts to curb voter turnout, and labors to mitigate the damage done. But there has not been enough attention given to another civil rights issue — restoration of voting rights.

Iowa has had a checkered history on this matter. Starting in 2005, Gov. Tom Vilsack restored voting rights to over 100,000 Iowans with Executive Order 42, thus ending Iowa’s claim as the only state to permanently disenfranchise citizens. Six years later, Gov. Terry Branstad reversed this order. The constitutional change to restore voter eligibility that was proposed in 2020 did not advance, but the bill attached to it that would have exacerbated inequities had HJR14 advanced was passed by both houses and signed by Reynolds. On Aug. 5, 2020, just a little over 2 months after George Floyd’s murder and subsequent demonstrations and political pressure, Reynolds flexed her gubernatorial muscle and signed Executive Order 7, thus reinstating the right to vote for 45,000 Iowans.

This effort is appreciated, but it is not enough. It is time for Iowa to take legislative action and end this dehumanizing tug of war for basic civil rights.

A year after the reinstatement, The Marshall project reported that 5,000 formerly incarcerated Iowans re-registered to vote. The report stated that data that would track efforts was “poorly maintained,” and given the difficulty of obtaining accurate data today, it seems this situation has not changed.

The Sentencing Project report went on to emphasize 11.4% of Black Iowans and 3.8% of Latiné Iowans were disenfranchised, compare to 1.5% of the entire Iowa population. An updated report shows this disparity still exists for Black Iowans as of 2022.

Iowa is the seventh-worst state when it comes to the racial disparities in imprisonment. Black and Native American populations are nine and 13 times more likely, respectively, to be in prison compared to whites in Iowa. Disparities on potential racial profiling and pretextual stops are harder to come by due to lack data collected when stops do not result in arrest or citation.

Voting suppression grew out of backlash to the passage of the 15th amendment. Poll taxes, grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and outright violence were attempts to legally rob Black Americans of the right to vote. The rules have changed, but the wicked game remains the same.

Beyond the fact that voting is a civil right and should be treated as such, there are benefits to society when voting rights are restored. According to a brief by The Sentencing Project, voting is correlated with reduced criminality and rearrest, and it facilitates reintegration with the community.

But Iowa has not done enough to make the civic duty of voting and its resulting benefits accessible, especially given the barriers erected during and after incarceration.

Costs of incarceration are already transferred to imprisoned people via charges for phone calls and e-messages, exorbitant money transfer fees of up to 32%, and medical copays — which often are incurred as a result from illnesses caused by incarceration. Once released, the path to reestablishing a life on the outside is ridden with obstacles. Connecting with loved ones, finding housing and employment, and other considerations take priority. But being able to cast a ballot should not be met with further difficulties, confusing guidance, and broken links on the restore your vote website.

Henry talked about solutions related to voting in general “I think we forget that we don’t need to wait for the law to change to do the right thing. We can take that power from civil rights movement examples to educate the public and hire people to speak [to voters] when translated materials are not available.”

If democracy is a priority to Iowa, make voting easier for all Iowans. At the very least, make data on initiatives more readily available, and take steps to improve engagement and registration.

Election Day is two days away, make sure you have your ID and a plan.

Chris Espersen is a Gazette editorial fellow. chris.espersen@thegazette.com