Voter I.D. laws poised to cost our already cash-strapped State millions, while Russian hack attempt swept under the rug.

Today, on Voter Registration Day, the Iowa Democratic Party is reminding Iowa residents of Governor Kim Reynolds and Secretary of State Paul Pate’s work to disenfranchise Iowa voters. Their active support of policies to limit access to the ballot box makes a waste of Iowa’s already strained tax dollars, while Reynolds and Pate sweep real, serious threats to Iowa’s elections under the rug.

“We can’t trust Governor Reynolds or Paul Pate to protect our right to vote here in Iowa,” said Iowa Democratic Party Spokesperson Tess Seger. “It’s clear that neither Reynolds nor Pate can get past their partisan alliances to run a fair, open, and honest election. Iowa deserves better.”

VOTER ID LAWS
Just before he stepped down, Governor Terry Branstad signed Iowa’s controversial voter I.D. measures in to law. The law was proposed by Secretary of State Paul Pate despite evidence from Pate’s own office that voter fraud is a virtually non-existent issue in Iowa.

The research on voter I.D. laws has proven time and time again that these measures are aimed at disenfranchising voters, rather than protecting our elections from a GOP-invented boogeyman.

This new law also shortened the time period allowed for early voting, making it even more difficult for working Iowans to get to the polls.

What’s more, voter I.D. Laws put a strain on the state’s budget, which is already reeling from the Reynolds Budget Crisis. In his own estimates, Paul Pate found that the new voter I.D. laws will cost the state upwards of $750,000, while the ACLU estimates that the cost could be much higher, even in to the millions. In the first years of implementation in Indiana, the state spent over $2.2 million on voter outreach and communication alone.

Even before becoming governor, Reynolds sponsored a voter I.D. bill in the State Senate.

2016 ELECTION HACK
On Friday, the federal government released its findings that Iowa was one of 21 states targeted by Russian hackers in 2016. In all of his statements since that announcement, Pate has downplayed the hack as routine.

Governor Reynolds has yet to even acknowledge the issue or address the state’s electoral cybersecurity at all.

DALLAS COUNTY VOTES
In February 2017, it was discovered that nearly 6,000 absentee ballots, or 1/3 of the entire absentee vote, in Dallas County were not counted in the November 2016 General Election.

At the time, several questions were raised as to why it took until February for the Secretary of State’s office to catch the mistake.

Dallas County is the largest county in Iowa and contains a large portion of the Des Moines suburbs. What’s more, the missing votes were 1 of every 8 cast. Officials should have noted right then that the vote totals for each candidate were significantly lower than the number of people marked as voted in Dallas County.

Instead of treating the issue with the objectivity and seriousness it deserved, Pate used it as an opportunity to push legislation he supported.

Since then, neither Governor Reynolds nor Paul Pate have given the people of Iowa any updates on what happened to cause the discrepancy.