Letter to the Editor: In House District 55 race, Democrats are asking for a single unelected official to overrule what the elected representatives of the people put into law

(Thomas Hansen of Decorah has submitted the following Letter to the Editor):

"Let us clear things up here in the current disputed vote for Iowa House District 55. We live in a representative republic, which means we elect individuals to represent us, the people, in our government. Here in Iowa, we elect House and Senate members whose job it is to enact laws which represent the will of the people. If the people think those members have not done their job, they can elect new members and those new members can change or rewrite the law. If the people think the laws enacted are unconstitutional, they can challenge them in court to have them rescinded. It is not the job of the judiciary to add anything to the law or to change it to what they feel the law should be.

When it comes to the law regarding absentee ballots and whether they are to be counted when they arrive after an election in the Auditor's Office, the law enacted by our elected representatives is very clear and concise. For a ballot which arrives late in the Auditor's Office to be considered valid, it must have either a legible USPS postmark, postmarked by the end of the business day of the Monday before the election, or an Intelligent Mail Barcode, preprinted by the Auditor's Office on the envelope before the ballot is sent out. These are the only two methods approved by the individuals we, the people, elected to represent us, put into the law. 

The Secretary of State's Office even took the extra step to be more concise and printed on the return envelopes that a USPS postmark is not guaranteed and stressed the need to get the absentee ballot to the Auditor's Office early so that there would be no dispute as to its validity. Ballots that arrive by mail or are delivered personally to the Auditor's Office before the end of the election (i.e. on time), do not need a postmark or IMB to be counted.

What is being requested here by the loser of the House District 55 race is for a single unelected official to overrule what the elected representatives of the people put into law as the two acceptable methods of verifying the validity of an absentee ballot which arrives late in the Auditor's Office, and add a third which he himself deems acceptable (Please note that an IMB and the barcode on the bottom of the envelope are two distinctly different items). That is called a dictatorship and there is nothing remotely partisan about that."