Iowa made it harder to get a mail ballot. Many simply didn’t vote

When Duane Earll and his wife Jean applied for mail-in ballots a few weeks before the June Iowa caucuses, he said he mailed their applications because he thought they would arrive at the election office within a day or two.

But a few days later, someone from Linn County government called him to say that the applications were coming in too late, so they had to find another way to vote. That’s when he started thinking about whether voting was worth it.

There were 11 days left before the primary when the elections office called the election. But a sweeping voting restrictions law signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in 2021 requires mail-in ballot applications to be received 15 days before an election. The Earls were four days late.

“I just let it slide,” said Duane Earll of Cedar Rapids. “I’m 94. My wife is 92. I turned in my license in November.”

The Iowa law — passed less than six months after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and Joe Biden’s victory was wrongly attributed to widespread voter fraud — imposed sweeping restrictions on multiple steps in the mail-in voting process, during early in-person voting and on Election Day. It has led to fewer people voting, especially by mail ballot.

The next test is the 2024 general election, when the Democratic Party is eyeing two Republican-held congressional seats to gain control of the House of Representatives. The incumbents are Rep. Zach Nunn, who won a Des Moines-area seat by a hair in 2022, and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, in the southeastern part of the state.

“It is our duty and responsibility to protect the integrity of every election,” Reynolds said in a statement when he signed the bill. “This legislation strengthens uniformity by providing consistent parameters for Iowa election officials.”

Duane Earll said he ultimately didn’t vote in June, and that was okay because his local ballot wasn’t very competitive. He plans to vote in November, but said he might choose a Libertarian over former President Donald Trump.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Duane Earll said. “Maybe I should have gone after it sooner, but I had no experience whatsoever with not receiving a ballot.”

Iowa law halves deadline for requesting a mail ballot

Iowa’s election law imposes restrictions on voting at nearly every step of the process, from shortening the time people have to register to vote to closing polls early on Election Day. But the restrictions on mail-in voting are the most drastic.

The law made it illegal for election officials to send out unsolicited ballot requests, or to pre-fill things like a voter’s name and address on a ballot request form. That means the only option for voters is to get the form, fill it out and mail it back.

In previous elections, voters had a 110-day window to file, beginning in early July. The law shortened that window to 55 days, so voters in the 2024 general election won’t be able to file until late August. The deadline to return ballots is also five days earlier this year.

Senator Roby Smith, a Republican who sponsored the bill, said on the floor before it passed that it was intended to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” through fair elections, and criticized his Democratic colleagues who argued the bill was about voter suppression.

Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, took credit for the bill, with Executive Director Jessica Anderson praising Iowa for passing “sound reforms … to secure our nation’s elections.”

“Iowa was the first state we went into, and we did it quickly and quietly,” Anderson said in a video obtained by Mother Jones magazine.

One of the bill’s authors, Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican who served as a senior adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign in Iowa, told USA TODAY Network that the group “literally has nothing to do with this” and “they’re lying.”

Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa, criticized the bill for overturning laws passed over the years to make it easier for people to vote.

“There’s no evidence that any of those things encouraged fraud,” Austen said. “There’s no history of that in our state. Legislators have cited no basis whatsoever.”

Iowa residents describe the struggles of voting in person

The law requires election officials to notify voters if their mail ballots arrive after the deadline but more than a week before the election. In Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids, records show that election officials called or emailed 30 applicants ahead of the June primary.

Donna Wentz said she and her husband had been using mail-in ballots for 20 years before she had this problem. They liked that it gave them more time to look at the ballots and research the candidates. But about a year and a half before the primary, her husband started using a wheelchair.

“They called to let me know that the requests were received too late and that we would have to vote in person, and that our polling place had the ability to bring the ballot to my husband’s car,” Wentz said in an email.

But when she looked at a sample ballot online, she saw that there weren’t many close elections, so the couple decided not to vote.

“It’s not easy for my husband to get in and out of vehicles,” Wentz said. “I really hope that doesn’t happen again because as a senior and someone with a disability, it’s so important to be able to be out.”

Data from the office of Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate shows that voter turnout fell 8% from the 2018 general election to the 2022 general election, the most recent comparison available. There was a 31% drop in the number of people who voted by mail ballot.

Ashley Hunt, a spokeswoman for Pate, a Republican, said the decline was not related to the new law but rather to record turnout in 2018 and a less competitive Democratic candidate for governor in 2022.

“Election turnout is heavily influenced by campaigns and their efforts to mobilize voters,” she said in a statement.

The largest drop in mail ballots was among voters with no political party affiliation, at 48%. They were followed by Republicans, at 36%, and Democrats, at 19%.

Overall, Republican turnout, including people who voted in person, rose 4%. It’s possible that some Republicans switched from voting by mail to in-person voting after Trump questioned the security of mail-in ballots in 2020.

“We are committed to securing our elections and ensuring that every eligible Iowan casts a ballot in every election,” Hunt said. “We’ve made the voter registration process accessible — Iowans can register to vote in just three minutes and have the opportunity to participate in same-day voter registration.”

Amelia Slaichert, a 35-year-old Cedar Rapids resident who works in public health, said she submitted her mail-in ballot application on May 20, 15 days before the June 4 primary—the deadline. She got a call a few days later, after the application was late.

Her biggest frustration was that the requirements weren’t clearly communicated to her before she requested a mail ballot. She eventually voted in person, but said it was still a hassle. She returned from her 40-minute commute on Election Day and rushed to walk her dog before getting to the polling place before it closed.

“I don’t really understand why these rules make things safer,” Slaichert said.

Iowa is one of 10 states that is shortening the filing period for absentees

Iowa is one of 10 states that have shortened the deadline for requesting a mail ballot, a trend that has been particularly prevalent among right-leaning states to make it harder to vote by mail. Other notable states include Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Arkansas.

“After the 2020 election, we saw a lot of misinformation about alleged fraud in mail-in voting,” said Andrew Garber, an attorney in the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “But in reality, mail-in voting is a safe and secure way to vote.”

Georgia’s 2021 law shortened the deadline to request a mail ballot by 109 days. Voters previously could request a mail ballot 180 days before an election; the bill shortened that to 78 days. The bill also moved the deadline to request a mail ballot forward by one week.

Ohio has shortened the deadline for requesting mail-in ballots by four days. Voters must submit their applications a week before Election Day. It is part of a sweeping election law that also tightens rules for voter IDs and ballot drop boxes.

In the November 2022 general election, held months before the law went into effect in Ohio, 35% of voters voted by mail, according to data from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office. In three statewide elections after the law passed, only 24% to 25% of voters voted by mail.

“What you get when you make it harder to vote by mail is very, very little. Maybe not election security, but you’re making it harder for a lot of people to vote,” Garber said. “That’s not an acceptable tradeoff.”