“It is impossible to conclude that almost complete completion of a request for absenteeism by the auditor is authorized under Iowa law where the legislature specifically prohibited government officials from completing the same document in part,” Judge Ian Thornhill wrote in a judgment of Thursday.
“Not every province can pay the pre-populated application forms,” the judge also noted.
Linn County election officials said after the ruling on Thursday that they planned to cancel the absentee ballot receipt forms they had received if the forms had pre-empted information. The province said it plans to send new application forms to each voter who was affected.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel said Thursday in a statement, “This statement holds an important mechanism for voter protection and will help ensure that Iowa’s elections are free, fair and transparent.”
According to the lawsuit, the province had sent 140,000 completed application request forms and received more than 50,000 completed forms.
“Because the defendant sent the ABR [absentee ballot request] “Forms to voters with the required security information pre-populated, there is no certainty that the ABR forms returned to his office were actually sent by the voter listed on the ABR,” the Trump campaign wrote in its lawsuit . ” If the suspect’s absent ballot papers in response to the pre-populated ABR forms, one of the absentee ballots being issued would be subject to challenge and could not be counted in the 2020 general election. “
This story was updated with response from Republican National Commission President Ronna McDaniel.
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