Iowa voter with no ID mistakenly turned away from the polls in special election

Stephen Gruber-Miller | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Iowa Poll: In 2017, most Iowans supported ID requirement at polls A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll showed in 2017 that 69 percent of Iowans favored a proposed law that would require voters to show a government-issued ID at the polls. Eighty-eight percent of Iowa Republicans supported the proposal.

An eligible voter in an eastern Iowa special election was wrongly turned away from the polls this week when she showed up to vote without an ID.

A Washington County voter, Susan McClellen, tried to vote Tuesday in a special school board election for the Mid-Prairie Community School District.

McClellen was told by a poll worker that she needed to present identification, which she didn't have with her. But she shouldn't have needed it. As part of a gradual rollout of the 2017 voter identification law, voters without IDs in 2018 are allowed to sign an "Oath of Identification" attesting that they are who they claim to be.

"I'm sure the poll worker was trying to do her diligent duty enforcing that she needed ID, but of course there is the 2018 oath that they can sign," said Sue Meeks, Washington County's elections administrator.

Another option would have been to allow McClellen to cast a provisional ballot, but that didn't happen either, Meeks said. "So that is unfortunate."

McClellen called Meeks the next day to let her know what happened, Meeks said.

"She was cordial enough with me on the phone when I explained it was nothing intentional, just an honest mistake on their part," Meeks said. "Just really unfortunate that they didn’t remember their alternatives there."

Critics have warned that Iowa's voter ID law, passed in 2017, will disenfranchise voters, particularly minority groups, students and the elderly, who are more likely to support Democrats.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is facing a lawsuit over the law brought by the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa and Taylor Blair, an Iowa State University student.

Kevin Hall, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, in a statement said the office was disappointed to learn that McClellen was not given that option or allowed to cast a provisional ballot, calling it "a serious mistake."

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The Secretary of State's office has provided training materials to all 99 county auditors that instruct them to offer the oath option to pre-registered voters without identification in 2018, Hall said in the statement.

"We have communicated with the Washington County Auditor's Office and will work with them to reinforce the training of their precinct officials about both of these important protections for voters," Hall said in the statement.

Meeks said Washington County held a poll worker training before this year's June primary and will hold another shortly before the November general election. But they did not hold a training before the school board election, which saw Emily Uhl defeat Randy Billups by a margin of 100 votes, according to unofficial results.

Two of the four poll workers volunteering during the special election had received the training before the June primary, but two had not been trained on the new rules, Meeks said.

"We ordinarily don’t, but I feel like that was probably a mistake on my part because with all the new rules it’s hard for the poll workers to remember," Meeks said of the training.

In the future, she said Washington County will emphasize the alternatives available to voters so the mistake is not repeated.