Comment on Lawsuit challenges Iowa’s new elections law

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.

 

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