Iowa Pre-Filled Absentee Ballot Applications Upheld by Judge

(Bloomberg) -- An Iowa judge agreed with Democratic petitioners that pre-filled absentee ballot applications sent to registered voters can’t be invalidated by a state directive that allows only for blank request forms.

Iowa District Court Judge Robert Hanson on Monday issued an emergency stay of the requirement that Democrats said would confuse voters, especially those who had already verified and returned the pre-filled applications sent out by county auditors.

“It completely escapes this court how the fairness and uniformity of the absentee ballot-application process could possibly be threatened by allowing county auditors to simply continue practices they had been following for some time,” Hanson said, citing an “almost complete” lack of evidence that increased absentee voting could lead to more voter fraud.

More than 200,000 absentee-ballot applications that already included voters’ personal information had been sent starting in July, according to the ruling. As of July 28, the auditors had received 65,000 signed request forms.

The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign successfully sued three Iowa county auditors that had started sending out the pre-filled applications, violating the July 17 directive from Iowa’s secretary of state that only allowed for blank forms. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Iowa Democratic Party sued to invalidate the requirement.

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