DCI Investigations Restore Voting Rights to 12 Iowans

Des Moines - Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz announced today that the DCI investigations have restored the rights of 12 Iowans.  Schultz has also created a task force to fix the inaccuracies in the felon file used for voter registration in the State of Iowa.

“We need to make sure illegal voters aren’t voting and make sure every eligible voter is able to vote.  We’ve given auditors a memorandum with instructions so that this situation does not happen again.  The task force will also be working together to come up with a long term solution to fix inaccuracies contained in the state’s felon file,” Schultz said.

Members of the task force are listed as follows:

·         Charlie Smithson, Legal Counsel for the Iowa Secretary of State office

·         Becky Elming for the Iowa Governor’s office (Larry Johnson will serve as alternate if needed)

·         David Boyd, Iowa State Court Administrator

·         Jennifer Guild for the Iowa Department of Corrections

·         Grant Veeder, Black Hawk County Auditor for the Iowa State Association of County Auditors

After a statewide review of all provisional ballots that were rejected for reason of felony conviction in the past two years, 37 were correctly rejected as felons and 12 were incorrectly rejected.  Of the 12 that were rejected, 3 were not felons but were included on a felon list provided to the Secretary of State, 2 felons had data entry mistakes where the conviction name provided did not match the restoration name provided, 6 felons had their rights restored by Executive Order 42, and one felon received a restoration of rights in 2010 but was not entered into the statewide voter database.  This includes the three voters from Cerro Gordo County that were previously identified.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office has requested that county auditors work with local law enforcement, clerks of court, and county attorneys to evaluate provisional ballots cast for reason of felony conviction before the ballots can be rejected.

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office forwarded this information to county auditors to restore these voter’s rights.