Voters showed strong interest in this year’s mid-term election in Iowa, so much so that one county ran out of ballots, election officials from across the state said when IowaWatch contacted them today.
Politicians and voting rights advocates continue to clash over whether photo ID and other voting requirements are needed to prevent voter fraud, but a News21 analysis and recent court rulings show little evidence that such fraud is widespread.
With the presidential election less than three months away, millions of Americans will be navigating new requirements for voting – if they can vote at all – as state leaders implement dozens of new restrictions that could make it more difficult to cast a ballot. A special report via News21.
One vote can determine an election, Republicans intent on fighting voter fraud say consistently. That thought drives a controversial investigation ordered by Secretary of State Matt Schultz and carried out by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) to find fraudulent voting in Iowa. “We have evidence that people have gone to the polls and voted when they weren’t supposed to,” Schultz said. “There are several Senate seats that were decided by 20 votes or less.”
The actual number from the 2012 and 2010 elections is two, an IowaWatch review of the state’s voting results shows. In 2012, Senate District 28 was decided by just 17 votes, with Republican Michael Breitbach edging out Democrat John Beard.