Stories

Changes in state law which kicked in on July 1 will make it harder to challenge the qualifications of voters, a change which may affect the efforts of Iowa Republicans to, as they’ve put it, “insure ballot integrity.”

Linn County voters flooded out of their homes find themselves in the same legal waters as students, with some discretion about their registration address, according to the Linn County Auditor’s Office.

State law defines a voter’s residence as the place to which they intend to return. College students can register at the dorm or at their [...]

With the potential of recounts looming in the Republican U.S. Senate and 2nd Congressional District races, it’s worth looking at why the numbers you see on election night change later and why the results are “unofficial.”

The results aren’t final on election night. That’s both a formality and a reality.

If you’re watching the primary returns next Tuesday night, you may want to keep a calculator handy. Iowa law requires a candidate to win 35 percent of the vote to earn a nomination, but the percentages that get reported aren’t always the ones that matter.

If no candidate gets 35 percent, the party has to hold [...]

Part of an annual voter mailing from the Iowa Secretary of State’s office has been re-sent. Errors in a postal bar code were causing some cards to incorrectly get the Elvis treatment — return to sender, address unknown.

Sen. Tom Harkin has joined other senators from states with election-day voter registration in backing a bill that would extend same-day registration to all states.

But the delegation from Iowa, the newest same-day registration state, is not united, with Rep. Steve King voicing his opposition.

The countdown to the June 3 primary reached 40 days Thursday, and that’s a major milestone. Early voting began at auditor’s offices across the state, and the first absentee ballots are in the mail.

Iowa has one of the longest early voting periods in the nation, and that has changed the state’s political landscape since the [...]

A mailing this week from the Secretary of State’s office could be a nice convenience to recently moved voters, or a headache at the polls. Voters who think they’re updating their address may in fact be canceling their registration.

The school election this September 9 may be the last one in a general election year, if Governor Culver signs the election bill that passed the Iowa Senate this week.

School board terms are likely to lengthen to four years and special elections will be fewer and farther between, under legislation that has passed both houses of the Iowa Legislature. The proposed legislation would also test out “voting centers” in low turnout elections.