VRM in the States: Iowa

September 14, 2012
Voting Rights & Elections
Voting Reform Agenda
Voter Registration Modernization

Iowa currently has the Electronic Registration at DMVs, Election Day Registration and Portability components of Voter Registration Modernization in place. Iowa also has electronic pollbooks in at least one county.

For more about Iowa's Election Day registration procedures, please visit the Secretary of State's website.

The excerpt below was adapted from an appendix to the 2010 report Voter Registration in a Digital Age.

Background
Motor vehicle registration in Iowa has been fully automated for several years, and the system has experienced no notable problems during this time. State election officials have also recently expressed interest in exploring online voter registration.

Outcomes
Director of Elections Sarah Reisetter highlights the automated system's reliability, finding that it leaves "significantly fewer chances for errors" than does a paper-based system. Whereas a paper form can be misplaced, and an envelope can be lost in the mail, system data are secure and easy to track. Ms. Reisetter confirms that automation has also eased the workload of county election officials.

How Electronic Registration Works in Iowa
A person does business with the Department of Transportation (DOT) by answering the questions of an employee who will copy down her information, and who will ask her if she would like to register to vote or to update an existing registration. If the answer is yes, the interviewer checks a "voter registration" box on his computer screen and asks the visitor for her party affiliation, if any. The visitor then affirms her eligibility and provides an electronic signature.

Each night the DOT system automatically collects data from applications flagged for voter registration and send them to a secure FTP site, where they are collected by the statewide voter registration database system and made available to county auditors for review. These transfers do not normally include digitized signatures, which election officials can instead access in the DOT database if the need arises.

In the past, Iowa has considered the following VRM-related legislation:

  • Pre-Registration. Provides for pre-registration starting at age 16. (S.S.B. 3093)
  • Pre-Registration. Provides for pre-registration starting at age 17. (HSB 586)