Just eight days after it was introduced in the Iowa Legislature, a bill that would make it harder to vote but easier to remove people from voting rolls, and creates new criminal liability for local election officials, received its final approval. On Wednesday night, the Republican-controlled Iowa House of Representatives sent the bill to Gov. […]
voting
Iowa House will hold a public hearing on bills to restrict voting Monday evening

The Iowa House of Representatives has scheduled an online public hearing at 5 p.m. on Monday for the election bill that was fast-tracked through both the House and Senate last week. HF 590, formerly HSB 213, along with its companion bill in the Senate, which was SSB 1199 before being renumbered SF 413, was introduced […]
Rita Hart moves into the lead in District 2 race for U.S. House as Jasper County corrects its vote total

Democrat Rita Hart took the lead in the race for the open seat in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, after the Jasper County Auditor’s Office corrected a mistake in the vote totals it reported on Tuesday. After the correction, Hart moved ahead of Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks by 162 in the district’s unofficial vote total. On Tuesday […]
Election Day FAQ: Where to go and what you need to vote on Tuesday
Monday is the final day for early voting and for getting absentee ballots in the mail
Early voting: Weekend hours, free rides, no free pizza

Johnson County had its biggest day so far at its drive-through early voting site on Thursday, with 808 ballots cast, Auditor Travis Weipert tweeted on Friday morning. The county is less 2,000 votes away from breaking the record set in 2016, when 16,461 people voted early. 808 voters through the drive-thru yesterday! Not only does […]
Advocates for Social Justice offering free Uber rides to the polls for all voters and childcare reimbursement

Iowans who need transportation to their polling place can use a free Uber voucher provided by the Advocates for Social Justice. The Cedar Rapids group announced on their Facebook page Wednesday evening that they are partnering with Democracy Defenders Iowa to expand their free Uber voucher to all Iowa voters. The group has already been […]
Drive-through voting sites add weekend hours, new satellite voting locations open

As early voting for the Nov. 3 election continues, the drive-through voting sites for Johnson County and Linn County are adding weekend hours, and both counties are opening new satellite voting locations. The drive-through voting site in Johnson County at the parking ramp north of the Johnson County Health and Human Services Building in Iowa […]
Satellite locations for early voting open this week

Early voting in the Nov. 3 election got off to a fast start last week, with 14,389 people casting ballots in Johnson County and 5,580 voting early in Linn County. Those totals reflect both in-person early voting, as well as absentee ballots returned by mail or deposited in the drop boxes set up by the […]
Advocates for Social Justice offering free Uber rides to the polls for Linn County voters

The grassroots group Advocates for Social Justice is trying to make it easier for people to vote in the upcoming general election. The group is offering free Uber rides for Linn County voters and is organizing various events near polling places. Early voting in Iowa began on Monday. County auditors began mailing out absentee ballots […]
Where to go and what you need to vote early in Johnson and Linn County

Early voting began in Iowa on Monday, with county auditors starting to mail out requested absentee ballots and early in-person voting sites opening. “We have almost 30,000 requests for absentee ballots,” Johnson County Auditor Travis Weipert said during an appearance last week on Iowa City’s Community Connection. “We’re going to mail those out through the […]
Democrats are a third of Iowa’s registered voters, but 55 percent of those who have requested absentee ballots

For the 2016 general election, a total of 286,268 Democrats requested absentee ballots. As of Wednesday morning — 41 days before the Nov. 3 election — 306,927 Democrats had requested absentee ballots, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. That is more than the number of absentee ballot requests from Republicans and people registered […]