Relating to the conduct of elections, including nominations, procedures for proposed amendments to the Iowa Constitution, and absentee voting, and including effective date provisions

The bill provides that if a person is elected to multiple incompatible elective offices and the person does not resign from all but one of the elective offices, there shall be a vacancy in the first office to which the person was elected. Under current law, a vacancy occurs in all of the offices to which the person was elected. The bill changes the deadline for the filing and withdrawal of nomination papers for primary elections, as well as the filing of objections to the nominations of candidates. The bill requires objections to the form of nomination papers or the affidavit of candidacy to be sustained. The bill also changes the timeline for the replacement of a candidate who withdraws from a primary or general election or dies. The bill allows a county commissioner of registration to cancel a voter’s registration if the commissioner receives notice of the voter’s death from the federal social security administration. The bill sets the date for the drawing of lots for the arrangement of candidates on a nonpartisan ballot to the 68th day prior to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The bill requires a ballot for president and vice president of the United States to disclose that a vote for such candidates is a vote for the slate of electors selected by the organization nominating such candidates. The bill requires constitutional amendments and public measures to be summarized by the state commissioner of elections. Current law allows the commissioner to summarize constitutional amendments and public measures. The bill requires the text of a proposed constitutional amendment to be posted inside the voting booth if the entire amendment will not fit on the ballot. For an election for a public measure to approve the issuance of a bond, the bill requires the county commissioner of elections to send notification to all voters eligible to vote on the measure not later than days before the election and to post the notification in the office of the county commissioner and on the internet site of the county commissioner. The bill allows the costs of such a notification to be charged to the entity requesting the public measure. The bill changes the deadline by the which the state commissioner of elections must transfer to county commissioners of elections certified copies of proposed constitutional amendments and public measures from days preceding an election to days preceding an election. Not less than nor more than days before an election, the bill requires the county commissioner of elections to publish notice of the election containing a list of candidates and public measures to be voted upon. The bill allows the notice to contain a facsimile of the portion of the ballot containing the rotation of candidates. Current law requires the notification to include such a facsimile. The bill adds provisions regarding the safeguarding of confidential information to the oath taken by precinct election officials. The bill requires a voter who is attesting to the identity of a registered voter who is unable to produce voter identification to first provide proof of the attesting voter’s identity. The bill alters the requirements for the return of election results to the county commissioner of elections. If election results are communicated to the county commissioner in person, the bill requires two precinct election officials to return the election results and the memory device used by voting equipment to the county commissioner in a sealed envelope signed by each precinct election official on the night of the election. The two precinct election officials shall be of different political parties in the case of a partisan election. The bill allows the county commissioner to designate an alternative person to return the election results and memory device, including but not limited to a state or local law enforcement officer. The bill requires a third precinct election official to return the ballots and election register to the county commissioner. The bill also requires ballots to be returned to the county commissioner on the night of the election. The bill allows election results to be returned by telephone only at the request of the county commissioner. The bill requires a county board of supervisors to report write-in candidates who received fewer than votes and were not elected under the collective heading “scattering” when canvassing votes after an election. The bill requires the state commissioner of elections to order election audits prior to all elections other than general elections. This provision of the bill takes effect January 1, 2022. The bill requires the state commissioner of elections to develop an internet application to allow a voter to track the voter’s absentee ballot request form and absentee ballot by February 26, 2024. The application must also inform a voter of an error in the voter’s application or ballot that requires correction by the voter. The bill changes the compensation rate for presidential electors from $5 per day of attendance to one-half of the relevant federal general services administration per diem rate. The bill removes a special deadline for the receipt of petitions for ballot propositions to approve the conduct of gambling games in a county. The bill requires such petitions to be submitted as required for other petitions. The bill changes the withdrawal deadline for candidates for school district office from days before the election to days before the election. The bill prohibits a county from having more than one official seal. However, the bill allows a county commissioner of elections to use a facsimile or modified facsimile of a county seal for the purposes of election duties, provided that a modified facsimile contain the words “county” and “auditor”, which may be abbreviated, and the word “Iowa”. The bill requires a nomination petition for a hospital trustee to be filed with the county commissioner of elections at least days before the date of the election. The bill repeals a Code section relating to vacancies in nominations of presidential electors. The bill also repeals a provision of law making the willful false swearing of an affidavit a fraudulent practice. The bill repeals a Code section authorizing a taxpayer to file a suit to test the legality of a proposed constitutional amendment and a Code section relating to the parties in such a suit. The bill repeals a section of 2017 Iowa Acts, chapter 155, that was not codified and is inconsistent with current law. The bill includes an effective date of January 1, 2022, for sections of the division relating to ballot vacancies. The other provisions of the bill take effect upon enactment except as otherwise noted.