Lawsuit challenges Iowa’s new elections law

DES MOINES - A lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges Iowa's new elections law that restricts early and absentee voting.

The lawsuit, filed in Polk County District Court, challenges some of the provisions included in the sweeping legislation signed into law Monday by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The lawsuit claims the shortening of the state's early voting period, the time in which voters can request and return absentee ballots and the loss of an hour at Election Day polling places create undue burdens on the right to vote promised in the Iowa Constitution.

The lawsuit was filed by the Iowa chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, with assistance from Democracy Docket, a Democratic legal organization that is monitoring elections laws nationwide.

The new elections law, which sped through the legislative process with only Republican support, would - among many other provisions - reduce by nine days Iowa's early voting period and the earliest day when local elections officials can send out absentee ballots, reduce by six days when an absentee ballot can be received by local elections officials, limit local elections officials' ability to create satellite early voting locations or add drop boxes for completed early ballots, and close the polls on general Election Day one hour earlier, at 8 p.m.

Republicans argued the changes were needed to instill confidence in the state's election system, even though the state has not experienced any significant election fraud. They also argued the changes were needed to create uniformity across all 99 counties.

Democrats charged the changes amount to voter suppression and an attempt to all but eliminate early voting.

LULAC in 2018 unsuccessfully challenged another 11-day reduction in Iowa's early voting period, also passed by Republican lawmakers and approved by Republican former Gov. Terry Branstad. That lawsuit was also unsuccessful in challenging the state's new voter ID requirement.

The courts, in that case, did strike down other, more minor provisions including one that would have prohibited elections officials from issuing a state voter ID card by using existing state data, and another that would have allowed local elections officials to dispute voter signatures.