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Iowa poll workers can question voters about their citizenship under new law
Gov. Kim Reynolds signs legislation on voter citizenship, recount procedures

Jun. 2, 2025 5:50 pm, Updated: Jun. 3, 2025 7:17 am
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Iowa poll workers will be allowed to challenge a voter at the polls on the basis of their citizenship status under new legislation signed into law Monday by Gov. Kim Reynolds.
The new laws also make changes to election recount procedures in the state, ban ranked choice voting and make it harder for third-party groups such as Libertarians to qualify as a major political party in the state.
Reynolds, in a news release Monday, announced the signing of House File 954 and House File 928.
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate praised Reynolds and Republican lawmakers for enacting the new laws, saying they will “add additional layers of integrity to our robust election procedures, supporting our efforts to balance election integrity and voter participation.”
Challenging voters’ citizenship status
House File 954 addresses elections laws regarding voter registration, citizenship and major party status. It also bans ranked choice voting in Iowa.
It adds citizenship status to age and residency under which an election precinct official can challenge someone’s voter registration, and creates new language on declaration forms confirming the voter is a U.S. citizen.
The new law allows the Iowa Secretary of State to use state and federal documentation to determine the U.S. citizenship status of Iowans on the state’s voter registration list and create a new voter registration status of “unconfirmed” for individuals whose citizenship the state cannot verify. It requires the Iowa Department of Transportation to send the Secretary of State a list of each person 17 years and older who has submitted documentation to the DOT indicating they are not a citizen.
“Unconfirmed records are records of registered voters about whom (a state or county election official) has received information from a reliable source indicating that the registered voter is not qualified,” according to the new law. “An unconfirmed record shall be made active upon the registered voter providing evidence that the registered voter is qualified.”
The changes come after Pate challenged the ballots of more than 2,000 Iowans whose U.S. citizenship was unclear just days ahead of the 2024 general election. He instructed local officials to have poll workers challenge the ballots of any individual on the list who attempted to vote. They were to cast provisional ballots, after which they would have a week to provide documentation of their citizenship.
Republicans said the bill is needed to protect the integrity of elections in Iowa, and pointed to the 35 votes cast in the 2024 general election in Iowa that Pate’s office has said were cast by Iowans without U.S. citizenship.
Democrats argued that Iowa’s election system already is secure, that the 34 potentially illegal votes were a vast minority out of 1.7 million cast, and that allowing poll workers to challenge voters’ citizenship creates the possibility of racial profiling.
“Just one illegal vote is an attack on all of our votes,” Rep. Austin Harris, a Republican from Moulton who floor-managed the bill, said during debate. “… As Americans, we have a right to self-determination through our elections. And when we turn a blind eye and we let people who have not earned the right to vote to do that, that threatens all of our abilities to self-determination.”
Election recount changes
House File 928 aims to standardize Iowa’s election recount procedures and requires they be conducted by county auditors and election workers, not separate recount boards.
Currently, recount boards are comprised of one representative from each campaign plus a neutral member agreed upon by both campaigns. The bill also gives auditors the flexibility to make the recount boards as large as they deem necessary.
State and local elections officials have been requesting an update to Iowa’s recount laws ever since a protracted 2020 recount in an Eastern Iowa congressional race that highlighted a patchwork of recount procedures across counties.
Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was certified the winner by a scant six-vote margin after reporting errors were corrected in two counties and following a process where counties used different methods for recounting ballots, and a 131-ballot discrepancy in Scott County that was never explained.
The new law requires that all recounts be conducted using automatic ballot tabulating equipment, except in “extraordinary circumstances” as determined by the Iowa Secretary of State or county auditor.
Only election results decided by a margin of 1 percent or less in Iowa would be recounted. The law lowers the threshold for election recounts to outcomes decided by either 1 percent or 50 votes, whichever is lesser, for state legislative and local elections; or by less than 0.15 percent for a statewide or federal office. Candidates would no longer be required to post a bond for any recount.
Pate and Harris said the bill will provide needed uniformity, reliability and consistency in the state’s elections recount process.
“We have seen in years past where the old system was used, abused, and manipulated by campaigns to try to ‘fix the outcome’ for their preferred candidate,” Harris said in a statement Monday. “Now we have a system that brings uniformity, consistency, and most importantly, trust to that system.”
Ranked choice voting ban
House File 954 also prohibits the use of ranked choice voting in any Iowa elections. Ranked-choice, or instant runoff voting, allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference instead of voting for one candidate. If there is no clear winner and someone’s first choice is not likely to win, the second choice candidate is counted for the ballot.
No local government in Iowa currently uses ranked choice voting.
Rep. Adam Zabner, of Iowa City, and other House Democrats argued against banning ranked choice voting and raising the bar for major party status.
A political party’s candidate for governor or president will need to receive at least 2 percent of the general election vote in three consecutive election cycles as opposed to one to be recognized as major political parties in Iowa.
Zabner said the law’s various provisions make it harder to generate a general election field of varied candidates with differing viewpoints.
“When I travel around the state of Iowa and I talk to Iowans, when I talk to my constituents, the No. 1 thing I hear is that folks are fed up with our polarized, two-party system and the choices that are available,” he said during floor debate.
Libertarians gained major party status following the 2016 election, but lost it following the 2018 election. They gained it back following the 2022 election and lost it again after the 2024 presidential election.
The party's presidential or gubernatorial candidate has never received 2 percent of the vote in three consecutive general elections.
Libertarian Party of Iowa Chair Jules Cutler condemned the legislation as an attack on voter choice.
“This is nothing more than an effort to rig the system in favor of the political establishment,” Cutler said back in March as the legislation advanced in the Iowa Legislature. “Iowans deserve better than a system designed to suppress competition and limit their choices at the ballot box.”
In the end, Pate argues the new laws strengthen and maintain Iowa’s election integrity, “keeping Iowa elections safe, fair and accurate.”
Gazette Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy contributed to this report.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com