Maintaining secure elections requires balance of participation and integrity, from voter list maintenance to refined recount procedures

The role of Iowa Secretary of State requires balance – ensuring that Iowa elections are safe, secure, and fair while concurrently empowering every eligible voter to exercise their fundamental right to make their voices heard in Iowa elections.

Across all 99 counties, we saw a fair and smoothly administered 2024 general election. Iowa’s election approach is nationally ranked – and we can attribute much of our success to multiple layers of protection and year-round preparation from poll workers, county auditors, Iowa Secretary of State staff, and our state and federal election security partners. Not only has our layered approach contributed to another safe, secure, and fair election – Iowans have noticed the results. A recent Iowa Poll found that 91% of Iowans have trust in Iowa’s election process.

As we wrap up the 2024 general election, we remain frustrated by the federal government's lack of support in helping us maintain clean voter lists, but we are already looking forward to 2025. We are optimistic that legislative changes can help us streamline procedures and introduce critical improvements, allowing us to continue to protect Iowa elections and ensure every eligible voter is able to cast a vote.

In the 2024 general election, we implemented processes that would help safeguard against ineligible voters casting ballots while also providing an avenue for eligible voters to cast provisional ballots and cure those ballots by providing evidence of citizenship when they register to vote.

In the most recent election, we saw recounts conducted for a legislative race separated by less than 20 votes. Just a few years ago, a U.S. congressional race was decided by only six votes. This reinforces that, without question, ensuring only eligible voters cast ballots is essential to fair elections.

The following proposals will allow us to refine these processes.

Our proposed legislation refines administrative procedures and standardizes key processes. We’ve also looked very closely at ways to simplify and improve the process of confirming a voter’s eligibility, including citizenship verification.

We will be broadening our sources for voter list maintenance, allowing us to maintain clean and up-to-date voter lists. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that only eligible voters are registered in Iowa and casting a ballot.

Citizens will also play a role – eligible voters are invited to review and audit voter rolls as part of this process.

As part of our legislative priorities, we’ve also introduced several technical changes to the Iowa Code that enable more uniformity and efficiency and tighten administrative procedures across our elections processes.

We are proud of Iowa’s safe and secure elections. We remain disappointed by the federal government's lack of cooperation in verifying voter eligibility. Still, we are confident that by working closely with the Iowa legislature, we can further strengthen Iowa’s already robust election integrity. Our proposed procedures will support our efforts to verify citizenship upon voter registration, instead of waiting until voters cast their ballots.

We look forward to working with Iowa legislators and Governor Reynolds to pass these important measures and continue to provide Iowans with trustworthy elections.