Will the preregistration deadline in Iowa affect your plan to vote?

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of its author and do not represent the views or opinions of the Linn County Auditor’s Office.

In October 2020, I was temporarily working full-time as a “team lead” for early voting in Iowa’s second-largest county.

At the time, many government buildings were closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In-person early voting for the general election normally at the auditor’s office took place that year in a big storage garage across the street — a large enough facility to keep voters and election workers six feet apart at all times. Face masks and social distancing were mandatory for everyone.

It was wildest election cycle I’ve ever experienced in my 10 years as an election worker.

Call me crazy, but the 2020 election cycle was also my favorite, for it was the year we were battle-tested. Our knowledge and our training — and our energy — had to be applied like never before in order to keep the voting process as normal as possible in a year when nothing was normal.

My colleagues and I would not be the election workers we are today if we hadn’t gone through what we did in 2020. A lot of those experiences live on as anecdotes I share with newer workers to supplement their perception of the role of an early voting worker.

I’m reminded of one such anecdote by the fast-approaching preregistration deadline for the 2024 election. One afternoon in mid-October 2020, I was called over by a member of my team to assist with a young first-time Iowa voter who was worried that she would lose out on her chance to vote because she didn’t possess the necessary documents.

Having just moved to Iowa to attend college in Cedar Rapids, the young woman had an out-of-state driver’s license that would work to verify her identity. She did not, however, have anything with her that could prove her residency, which was required for her register and vote at that moment.

No election worker wants to turn an eligible voter away before they vote, even if just so the voter can retrieve the necessary documents and return. Thinking she might not be able to register at all, the young voter fought back tears as I explained the ways she could still register and vote in the 2020 election and what documents she would need to do that.

Her simplest option would have been to fill out a voter registration form and leave it with the county auditor’s office, for the preregistration deadline had not yet passed.

Iowa’s voter registration deadline is often called the “preregistration deadline” because one of its functions is to act as the cutoff time for any new or updated voter registration to be on the list at one’s local polling place on Election Day. Preregistered voters need only show proof of ID when they vote. After the deadline, they can even show a valid out-of-state driver’s license or non-driver’s ID without needing additional proof of residence.

In lieu of providing tangible proof of ID and residency, the Iowa Voter Registration form requires that the voter print either their Iowa Driver’s License or Non-Operator’s ID number or the last four digits of their social security number. Not showing a hard ID does not mean they skirt ID requirements — Iowa law and administrative procedure requires that those numbers be verified on the back end by comparing them with records of the Iowa Department of Transportation. A mismatch will result in the voter being required to show proof of ID and residency before they can vote. ID also will be required if the voter registration card mailed to the voter’s mailing address is returned as undeliverable and the voter does not respond to additional notice or otherwise resolve the issue.

The term “preregistration deadline” reflects the fact that Iowa’s voter registration deadline is no longer a hard cutoff for eligibility to vote in an upcoming election. It was a different story before 2007, when Democrats in state government passed same-day voter registration.

Many readers are already aware that I am a registered Republican. Some might be surprised that I favor a Democrat policy that is even today opposed by some of my fellow Republicans.

But if same-day voter registration existed when I was a first-time voter, my first voting experience over two decades ago would not have been such a disappointment.

Like many other Iowans, I completed my voter registration through a state agency, registration which was verbally confirmed by the state worker. Four and a half months later, I went with my dad to our polling place and was told by the Precinct Election Official that I was not listed in the book.

It became apparent that my registration had never been processed. I had not known at all to expect a voter registration card in the mail, let alone to follow up when it failed to arrive.

My first vote was via provisional ballot. Three weeks later, I received a letter stating that my ballot would not be counted. Had those same-day rules existed at the time, I would have been able to register right then and there with my driver’s license, and my ballot would have counted. Instead my voting record shows that I was first registered on Nov. 25, 2002.

On that afternoon in October 2020, I shared that story with the worried college student at my early voting site to emphasize how deeply I understood her concern.

“That will not happen to you,” I told her. “We’ve got options for you to register and vote in this election.”

To some, completing one’s voter registration might be the less urgent component of the preregistration deadline. Potentially, its most critical aspect is that it doubles as the deadline to request an absentee ballot.

Absentee ballot request forms are due back to county auditors’ offices at precisely the same time as registration forms for preregistered voters. State law puts that deadline at 5 p.m. fifteen days before the day of an election. This year, that date is Monday, Oct. 21. For readers reading this column on the day it prints, that date is tomorrow.

It is now officially too late to place absentee ballot requests in the mail — they will not arrive at your county auditor’s in time. Because absentee ballots must be requested in writing with the voter’s signature, they cannot be made over the phone. Voters who want a ballot mailed to them can return the completed request form in person to their county auditor’s office by 5 p.m. Monday.

Voters who submit completed voter registration forms after 5 p.m. Monday will still have their forms accepted, but their registration will not be effective until after the election. After 5 p.m. Monday, voters needing to complete or update their registration before voting in 2024 should be prepared to provide both proof of their identity and residency at whatever polling site they visit.

I wrote this column late on Thursday, Oct. 17. I arrived home that evening utterly exhausted after the conclusion of the second day of early voting at Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids. We served 886 voters that day and a few dozen shy of one thousand the day before that. Those numbers dwarf the attendance from our pandemic-altered operation in a giant storage garage in 2020.

Voters are getting reacquainted with casting their ballot in person, and an impressive number of them are doing it before Election Day. We’re glad to see them.

But I get it — every voter has their preferred method. Sometimes that method is to vote on Election Day or vote by mail. If that’s you, Monday, Oct. 21 is your deadline. If you wish to see your name in the pollbook at your new Election Day polling place or if you need that ballot sent to you in the mail, tomorrow is the day to get that done.

If you can’t make that happen, an early voting site or your Election Day polling place awaits you, and your county auditor is only a phone call away to answer your questions. The election is fast approaching, but there’s still just a little bit of time to make a plan to vote.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com