1,198 Iowa primary voters didn’t show IDs

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Nearly 1 percent of voters in Iowa’s largest counties did not show identification during the June 5 primary under a new state law, prompting critics to warn that the requirement could disenfranchise some voters in elections beginning next year.

At least 1,198 voters signed oaths affirming their identities because they did not have, or refused to show a driver’s license or other ID accepted under the law, according to figures provided to The Associated Press by the 10 counties with the highest turnout. They accounted for 0.83 percent of 144,000 ballots cast for which the data was collected.

The primary was the first statewide election in which pre-registered voters were asked to show a state-issued ID, passport, military or veteran ID or free voter card before casting ballots, under the law approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature last year. Previously, those voters only had to give their names and addresses to poll workers.

As part of a gradual rollout of the new law, voters without IDs in 2018 are being allowed to sign an “Oath of Identification” attesting that they are who they say they are. The oath option will remain available in the November election, which features competitive races for governor and at least two Republican-held U.S. House seats.

But in 2019 when there will be local races, the option of signing an oath will go away.

Elections officials said that some of the oath signers had IDs but were protesting the new requirement to show them. Even accounting for that possibility, the numbers gathered by AP “are a good way to gauge the disenfranchisement that would occur without an affidavit option,” said ACLU attorney Rita Bettis, a critic of the new law.

“These findings help demonstrate that the best and easiest path to [protect voting rights] is to keep an affidavit in place as a safeguard for those qualified voters who don’t have a needed ID,” she said.