One of the county auditors who distributed partially-filled-out forms for requesting absentee ballots says at least 75 percent of the voters in Woodbury County who mailed back those requests have submitted a second form that complies with court rulings.
Two district court judges ruled the forms auditors in Woodbury, Linn and Johnson Counties mailed this summer should not have included the voter’s address and voter ID number and should have been blank.
“A big percentage of those folks have already requested a ballot through a different form, so we feel pretty good about that,” Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill says.
Gill says it’s time to move on from the court fight — and focus on in-person early voting.
“Most of the people who had their requests invalidated have already requested a new ballot and a lot of them are already showing up at the Long Lines Family Rec Center to vote in-person absentee,” he says.
The Iowa Supreme Court intervened yesterday and issued a stay, setting aside a Polk County District Court judge’s ruling that might have validated some of the nullified absentee ballot request forms in Woodbury, Linn and Johnson Counties.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)