Kayla Koether: Absentee voting legislation passed by Iowa Senate this week is "anti-rural voter"

Posted: Fri, Jun 12, 2020 9:18 AM

Iowa House District 55 Democratic candidate Kayla Koether is condemning as "shocking" new legislation passed on party-lines in the Iowa Senate this week that would change the rules involving voting by mail.

Koether in 2018 lost her previous run for the Iowa House by nine votes after the legislature ruled against counting 29 absentee ballots. Her efforts in 2019 helped spur a change in Iowa law to assure valid absentee ballots would be counted.

Earlier this year, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate sent applications to vote by mail to all registered voters in the June 2nd primary. Iowa saw record voter participation.

Now the Iowa Senate has approved a bill which would ban the Iowa Secretary of State from mailing absentee ballot applications to every registered voter during emergencies and would prohibit county auditors from helping correct voter forms--requirements that make it more difficult
for Iowans who want a mail-in ballot to get one.

Said Koether, "This shocking new legislation is anti-voter, anti-rural, and has no place in a democracy." She added, "Northeast Iowans, especially those working long hours, the elderly, families with young children, people with disabilities and folks who are sick, want and need easy absentee balloting. Rural voters already have to go further to get to the polls. In some of our small towns, polling sites have been consolidated. Now we're facing

the uncertainty of this virus, which may keep more of our older residents home in November."