Judicial Watch Statement on Iowa Secretary of State Misleading about Accuracy of State’s Registration Rolls

February 03, 2020 | Judicial Watch


(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the Iowa secretary of state misleading Americans and state residents about the accuracy of Iowa’s registration rolls:


It is shameful that the secretary state of Iowa would mislead Iowans and Americans about the accuracy of the state’s registration rolls.


Judicial Watch’s analysis of Iowa’s state registration rolls is based on official voter registration data provided by Iowa to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for publication in 2019. Data concerning such registrations must be reported to the EAC by law under federal regulation 11 C.F.R. § 9428.7.

Based on this federal data, Judicial Watch found eight counties with registration rates over 100% of the voting age population. The next reliable report on Iowa’s registration rolls won’t occur until after the November election, as the EAC’s next report will be released in 2021.

The Iowa secretary of state’s release of interim voter registration data further confirms our concerns and shows that five of the eight counties we listed are still over 100%. Nearly three dozen counties have a registration rate over 95% of the voter age population, which is extraordinarily high. Our data has proven to be a strong indicator of voter registration issues and a basis for further inquiry. Based on lawsuits alleging the same voter registration issues, Judicial Watch has obtained three statewide settlement agreements, including a consent decree in the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2018 and a settlement with Los Angeles County and the State of California in 2019.

California last year began the process of removing up to 1.5 million “inactive” names from Los Angeles County voter rolls. Kentucky also began a cleanup of up to 150,000 names last year. In 2018, the Supreme Court upheld a voter roll clean up in Ohio that resulted from a Judicial Watch settlement. A federal court ordered the State of Maryland to produce voter list data for its largest county based on the work of Judicial Watch. Our approach has survived federal court scrutiny in four states.

Iowa’s Secretary of State and local officials need to clean up the election rolls and reassure voters that the state’s election process is being administered in compliance with federal law and common sense.
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