Secretary of State Paul Pate’s legislative proposal on voter registration verification was advanced by a Senate subcommittee Thursday. Pate called for the bill after his actions to challenge potential noncitizens’ ballots raised contention during the 2024 general election.
Senate Study Bill 1088 makes changes that would allow the Secretary of State’s office to contract with state and federal agencies, as well as with private vendors, to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. It would require the Iowa Department of Transportation share a list of people who have submitted documentation indicating they are not U.S. citizens for the office to compare with the list of registered voters.
The bill comes in the wake of guidance from the Secretary of State weeks before the 2024 general election to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who were listed as “potential noncitizens” — individuals who had self-identified as noncitizens to the DOT or another government entity within the past 12 years who had later registered to vote or participated in state elections. The ACLU, on behalf of naturalized citizens and the League of United Latin American Citizens, brought a lawsuit against the guidance before the election, but a federal judge ruled to uphold the directive as there were confirmed noncitizens on the Secretary of State’s list.
Pate said this process was necessary because the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under former President Joe Biden’s administration had denied the state access to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to verify the citizenship status of these flagged individuals. At a Senate subcommittee meeting Thursday, Pate told lawmakers his office was granted access to the SAVE database earlier in February, but the legislation was a way for the Iowa SOS to continue to partner with agencies for voter registration verification.
“This bill, particularly, is a way for us to do more on the front end to make sure that on the voter registration side, we’re doing our due diligence to make sure only qualified eligible citizens who are meeting all the criteria are the ones who are voting — taking some of that off the side of waiting until Election Day,” Pate said. “The voter maintenance list is so crucial, elections (are) only as good as that list.”
The bill would mark registered voters are “unconfirmed” if state registrar of voters or a county commissioner receives reliable information that the individual is a noncitizen, or if the individual indicated on their voter registration form that they are a noncitizen but still registered to vote. The status would be changed from “unconfirmed” to active if the voter provides evidence that they are qualified to vote. Secretary of State’s office staff said voters would be mailed notice that they are marked as “unconfirmed.”
Some advocates, like Sharon Santema with the Iowa Canvassing Volunteers group, expressed concerns about the provision in the legislation allowing the state to work with third-party entities for voter roll maintenance. Santema said there needs to be “very clear guidelines” around using these vendors. She said the state had inaccurate information on voter rolls while working with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonpartisan organization.
“There are some great private entities doing voter roll maintenance,” she said. “But how does the state actually decipher an effective entity from an entity like ERIC, which left our voter rolls in very poor condition?”
Eric Gookin with the Secretary of State’s office said this provision is not “outsourcing” voter roll maintenance to third-party entities.
“What that’s doing is allowing us to contract, to bring in data, that we can then analyze here as a state agency to make determinations on whether or not voters are qualified, or if they’ve moved or, you know, things of that nature,” Gookin said. “So we’re not outsourcing anything. We’re just trying to get the flexibility that we need to bring information back to us.”
Sen. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, questioned why the bill was necessary because of the “checks and balances” already in place to ensure a person is eligible when they register to vote, including having a person confirm their citizenship subject to perjury and felony charges — and said she has concerns about portions of the bill that could prevent eligible voters from participating in elections.
“The thing that concerns me with this particular bill has not been talked about, but it is where the precinct election officials can question an individual’s citizenship at the polls, and I think that that really borders on discrimination,” Winckler said.
One portion of the bill allows precinct election officials to question a person about citizenship status if their right to vote was challenged at the polls.
Gookin said the provision was added because poll workers are currently not able to ask a voter whose ballot has been challenged about their citizenship status, and this information is needed to determine a person’s eligibility to vote.
Pate said “no one is turned away from the polls” because of the proposed changes, as challenged voters would still be able to submit a provisional ballot and return with documentation proving their citizenship status to have their vote counted.
Sen. Ken Rozenboom, R-Oskaloosa, said he supported moving the measure forward, but had concerns about how same-day voter registration would work under the legislation.
“We’re wanting them to verify a lot of stuff … all that stuff should have been established at the at the point at the time of registration,” Rozenboom said. “But what if that’s all happening at the same time? That’s a concern for me.”
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