10 states made it trickier to apply for an absentee ballot. In Iowa, it came with a cost

When Duane Earll and his wife, Jean, applied for absentee ballots a couple weeks before Iowa’s primary in June, he says he put their applications in the mail thinking they would arrive at the elections office in a day or two.

But several days later, someone from the Linn County government called him to say the applications came in too late, so they would need to find another way to vote. That’s when he started to think about whether voting was worth the hassle.

There were still 11 days before the primary when elections office called. But a sweeping voting restriction law that Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds signed in 2021 says that applications for absentee ballots need to be received 15 days before an election. The Earlls were four days late.

“I just kind of let it slip through,” said Duane Earll, of Cedar Rapids. “I’m 94. My wife is 92. I turned in my drivers license in November.”

Iowa’s law − passed less than six months after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and falsely blamed Joe Biden's victory on widespread voter fraud − implemented sweeping voting restrictions at multiple steps in the absentee voting process, during early in-person voting, and on Election Day. It’s led to fewer people voting, especially by absentee ballot.

The next test is the 2024 general election, when the Democratic Party is targeting two Republican-held congressional seats in their path to control the House. The incumbents are Rep. Zach Nunn , who won a Des Moines-area seat by a hair in 2022, and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, in the southeastern part of the state.

“It’s our duty and responsibility to protect the integrity of every election,” Reynolds said in a statement when signing the bill. “This legislation strengthens uniformity by providing Iowa’s election officials with consistent parameters.”

Duane Earll said he didn’t end up voting in June, and that was fine because his local ballot wasn’t very competitive. He plans to vote in November, but said he might choose a libertarian over former President Donald Trump.

“Whatever happens, happens,” Duane Earll said. “Maybe I should’ve followed up early, but I didn’t have any experience at all with not receiving a ballot.”

Iowa's law halved the window to apply for an absentee ballot

Iowa’s voting law implements restrictions on voting in nearly every step of the process, from reducing how much time people had to register to vote, to closing polling places earlier on Election Day. But its restrictions on absentee ballots are the most sweeping.

The law made it illegal for elections officials to send unsolicited absentee ballot applications, or to prefill things such as a voter’s name and address on a ballot application. That means voters’ only option is to get the application, fill it out and return it.

In previous elections, voters had a 110-day window to submit the application, starting in early July. The law reduced that window to 55 days, so voters in the 2024 general election will not be able to start submitting their applications until late August. The cutoff to return the ballots is also five days earlier this year.

State Sen. Roby Smith, a Republican who sponsored the bill, said on the floor before it passed that it was meant to promote “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” through fair elections, and criticized his Democratic colleagues who alleged the bill was about voter suppression.

Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, took credit for the bill, and executive director Jessica Anderson praised Iowa for passing “common-sense reforms … to secure our nation’s election.”

“Iowa was the first state that we got to work in, and we did it quickly and we did it quietly,” Anderson said in a video obtained by Mother Jones magazine.

One of the bill's authors, state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a Republican who worked for Trump's presidential campaign in Iowa as a senior adviser , told the USA TODAY Network the group had "quite literally zero to do with it" and "they're lying."

Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, criticized the bill for carving away at laws that were passed over time in an effort to make it easier for people to vote.

“There’s no evidence that any of those things encouraged fraud,” Austen said. “There’s no history of that in our state. Legislators didn’t cite any basis.”

Iowans describe the hassle of voting in person

The law requires election officials to notify voters in the event their absentee ballots come in after the deadline but more than a week before the election. In Linn County, which includes Cedar Rapids, records show that election officials called or emailed 30 applicants ahead of the June primary.

Donna Wentz said she and her husband had been using absentee ballots for 20 years before she had this problem. They liked the additional time it gives them to review the ballot and look up the candidates. But about a year and a half before the primary, her husband started using a wheelchair.

“They did call to let me know that the requests were received late and we would need to vote in person, and that our polling place had the ability to bring the ballot out to the vehicle for my husband,” Wentz said in an email.

But when she looked at a sample ballot online, she saw there weren't many competitive races, so the couple decided not to vote.

“It is not easy for my husband to get in and out of vehicles,” Wentz said. “I really hope this doesn't happen again because as senior citizens and someone with a disability, being able to do absentee is so important.”

Data from the Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office shows that voter turnout went down 8% from the 2018 general election to the 2022 general election, the most recent comparison available. There was a 31% drop in people voting by absentee ballot.

Ashley Hunt, spokesperson for Pate, a Republican, said the drop wasn’t related to the new law, but rather was a reflection of record voter turnout in 2018 and a less competitive Democratic candidate for governor in 2022.

“Voter turnout is strongly impacted by campaigns and their efforts to turn out voters,” she said in a statement.

The biggest drop in absentee ballots cast was among voters without a political party, which went down by 48%; followed by Republicans, a 36% drop; and Democrats, a 19% drop.

Republican turnout overall, which includes people voting in person, increased 4%. It's possible some Republicans switched from voting absentee to in-person after Trump cast aspersions on the security of absentee ballots in 2020.

“We are dedicated to securing our elections and ensuring every eligible Iowan casts their vote each election,” Hunt said. “We have made the voter registration process accessible — Iowans can register to vote in as little as three minutes, and have the ability to participate in same day voter registration.”

Amelia Slaichert, a 35-year-old from Cedar Rapids who works in public health, said she sent in her absentee ballot application May 20. That was 15 days before the June 4 primary − the cutoff for when it was due. She got a call a couple days later, after the application arrived late.

Her biggest frustration was that the requirements weren’t communicated clearly to her before applying for an absentee ballot. She ended up voting in person but said it was still a hassle. She returned from her 40-minute commute on Election Day and then rushed to let her dog out before heading to the polling place before it closed.

“I don’t really understand why any of these rules make things more secure,” Slaichert said.

Iowa among 10 states to shorten absentee application window

Iowa is one of 10 states that have narrowed the window for applying for a mail-in ballot, part of a trend mostly among right-leaning states to make it harder to vote absentee. Other key states include Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Arkansas.

“Coming out of the 2020 election where we saw a lot of disinformation spread about purported fraud in mail voting,” said Andrew Garber, counsel in the democracy program for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “But in reality, mail voting is a safe and secure way to vote.”

Georgia’s 2021 law cut the window to apply for an absentee ballot by 109 days. Voters previously could request ballots as early as 180 days before an election; the bill cut that to 78 days. The bill also moved up the deadline to request an absentee ballot by a week.

Ohio shortened the absentee ballot request window by four days, requiring voters to submit their applications a full week before Election Day, as part of a sweeping election law that also tightened rules on voter ID and ballot drop boxes.

In the November 2022 general election, held months before Ohio’s law went into effect, 35% of voters used an absentee ballot, according to data from the Ohio secretary of state’s office. In three statewide elections after the law passed, only 24% to 25% of voters used absentee ballots.

“What you’re getting when you make it harder to vote by mail very very little, perhaps no election security, but you’re making it harder for a lot of people to vote,” Garber said. “That’s not an OK tradeoff.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 10 states made it trickier to apply for an absentee ballot. In Iowa, it came with a cost