Voter registration challenges prompt cleanup of Linn County’s voter rolls

CEDAR RAPIDS — Responding to challenges brought against the registrations of hundreds of Linn County voters, the county Auditor’s Office on Thursday held a hearing and removed from its rolls voters who were determined to no longer live in Linn County.

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller held hearings Thursday at the Jean Oxley Public Service Center in Cedar Rapids for 506 voter registration challenges brought forth by local members of Iowa Canvassing. The organization bills itself on its website as a “grassroots group of volunteers keeping Iowa voter rolls clean for fair and trusted elections.”

Originally, Iowa Canvassing had identified and challenged the registrations of 939 voters. Linn County Deputy Elections Commissioner Matt Warfield said the organization’s members worked with county officials to set up a process to efficiently review the challenged voter list.

The group provided county officials with a list of registered voters’ addresses and the addresses where their forwarding mail was being sent. County officials used the forwarding address to notify the voter of a forthcoming challenge and included a form with which they could cancel their registration.

Through that process, Miller said more than 400 voters opted to cancel their registrations. Of the remaining 506 whose registrations were canceled Thursday, Warfield said most of those were inactive. Some were active but already registered to vote in another county.

No challengers or voters whose registration information was being challenged were present for the hearings Thursday. Up to 10 minutes could have been allotted per voter challenged.

All challenges submitted by Iowa Canvassing were on claims that the voter moved out of state. There were no claims of voter misconduct.

It is not illegal to be registered to vote in two states, Miller said, though it is illegal to vote in two states’ elections on the same day. He noted college students in particular are commonly registered to vote in two different places.

Before the November 2022 midterm elections, the same group challenged another 119 voters’ registration information, The Gazette previously reported.

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Warfield said last year’s challenged voter information came right at deadline, 70 days before the November election. That challenge frustrated local officials as it impacts their efforts to prepare for elections.

Before this year’s batch of challenges, Warfield said county officials reached out in January to set up this process, and Iowa Canvassing group members listened to and agreed with officials’ concerns.

“They were concerned about the impact on the election and they’ve been great to work with,” Warfield said. “They’ve done what they can to make it easy for us.”

Miller said officials were pleased to use this cooperative method in July rather than right before a major election to clean up voter rolls.

“This decreases the ability of someone to fraudulently claim they were that person, somehow get through the check-in process and get a ballot and vote,” Miller said.

Warfield said if voters whose registrations were canceled eventually move back to Iowa, the process to restore their voting privileges would be no different then if they were an Iowa resident looking to register at a different address.

Miller said election officials across Iowa are seeing more such challenges to voters’ registration information. Nationwide, dozens of court challenges and state elections officials have investigated and found no measurable voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Without evidence, former President Donald Trump has made claims of voter fraud, prompting questions about the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election results. As a result, there’s been an uptick in voter registration challenges.

“This is a relatively new phenomenon across the state of Iowa,” Miller said. “ … It’s happening on a more frequent basis.”

To reach the Linn County Election Services Office with questions, call 319-892-5300, Ext. 1 or email Elections@LinnCountyIowa.gov. Additional information about elections and how to register to vote in Linn County is available at linncountyiowa.gov/vote.

Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com