Democratic secretary of state hopeful Joel Miller: ‘Make voting easy again’

DES MOINES — Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, in campaigning Saturday at the Iowa State Fair, said he’s running for secretary of state to “make voting easy again.”

Miller said advocating for laws that make in-person and absentee voting easier would be his prime focus as secretary of state, the top elections official in the state. He criticized current Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, for not opposing legislation that opponents said curtailed voting rights.

Iowa Republicans passed a wide-ranging voting law in 2021 that cut the state’s early voting period from 29 days to 20. The law also made general election polls close an hour earlier, required absentee ballots to arrive to county auditors by the end of Election Day no matter their postmark, and limited the options for county auditors to facilitate early and satellite voting. Proponents of the law said it was an effort to enhance election security.

Miller said the law prevented some people from voting, including in Linn County, where 101 voters missed the deadline to vote by mail. Of those, he said 51 people did not end up voting.

"If half the people don't go vote that were planning to vote by mail, that's a crisis for our democracy,” he said in a speech at the Des Moines Register Soapbox at the fair. “And Paul Pate was nowhere to be found.”

Miller would reject any further limitations to voting rights as secretary of state, he said. He proposed automatically registering Iowans to vote at 17 and automatically registering voters when they renew their driver's license.

He said the state should institute permanent absentee ballot request forms, which would allow auditors to send absentee ballots to voters on a recurring basis, and allow for more than one absentee ballot drop box in larger counties.

Miller also criticized Pate’s efforts to combat human trafficking, saying the initiative is outside his duties as secretary of state. Miller said he’s against human trafficking, but said there’s an office in the public safety department to focus on combating it.

“Yes he’s bringing visibility, but he’s wasting tax dollars,” Miller said. “Do you want to rehire a secretary of state who’s been negligent, who has no leadership when it comes to election laws, the most important part of his job, and who's out wasting taxpayer dollars?”

The Des Moines Register extended invitations to speak to all candidates for statewide and federal office, and Pate is not scheduled to speak at the Soapbox.

Pate is holding an informal “straw poll” at a booth in the Varied Industries Building at the fair, where fairgoers can show support for their preferred candidates, and the booth provides opportunities for voter registration.

“Paul Pate’s record of safe and secure elections speaks for itself,” Republican Party of Iowa spokesperson Kollin Crompton said in a statement. “Under Pate’s leadership, Iowa’s elections have seen increased turnout while improving election integrity. It's why Iowa ranks third in the country for election administration."