Miller-Meeks’ support for voter suppression measure is the latest example of the 4-time IA-02 candidate putting politics ahead of public safety
Over half a million Iowans voted in last week’s primary election – an all-time record number. Yet late Friday night, State Senator and four-time IA-02 Republican candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted to pass legislation that would make it more dangerous for Iowans to vote, in an obvious attempt to suppress turnout in November. The bill prohibits Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State from sending an absentee ballot mailer to every registered voter – a move that is widely credited for the state’s unprecedented primary turnout.
According to a new report from Iowa Starting Line, Miller-Meeks’ vote “baffled” county election officials. As one county auditor put it, “This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, this is a safety issue … It’s perplexing that instead of celebrating our record turnout in a pandemic that the Iowa Senate is looking to tie the hands of a non-partisan mailer that gave every Iowan the opportunity to vote.”
Iowa Starting Line: Miller-Meeks Is Trying To Make It Harder For You To Vote
By Pat Rynard, June 6, 2020
On Tuesday night, Mariannette Miller-Meeks received at least 22,771 votes in her winning campaign for the Republican nomination in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. Despite facing a vote-splitting, five-way field, it was the largest number of votes Miller-Meeks has ever earned in a primary.
…It was all part of a record-breaking election for an Iowa primary, in which over 524,675 Iowans statewide voted, the most ever. This was despite a deadly pandemic, in large part because the Republican Secretary of State sent out an absentee ballot mailer to every registered voter. By Election Day, 418,923 Iowans had already voted by mail.
That was Tuesday night. What did Miller-Meeks do Friday night once back at the Iowa Statehouse in her role as a state senator?
Voted for legislation that would put restrictions on the very absentee balloting that made that record turnout possible.
…County election officials balked at the move that followed the state’s most-successful primary election yet.
“According to unofficial results from the Iowa Secretary of State’s website, almost 80% of the votes cast in the primary were voters who did so early – mostly by mail,” Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said in a statement. “This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, this is a safety issue … It’s perplexing that instead of celebrating our record turnout in a pandemic that the Iowa Senate is looking to tie the hands of a non-partisan mailer that gave every Iowan the opportunity to vote.”
Scott County Auditor Roxanna Mortiz said auditors around the state were “baffled by this.”
“We hope that the legislature will reject House File 2486 … out of respect to the hundreds of thousands of Iowa voters who just exercised their rights in the most basic act of democratic government, without having to choose between their rights and their health,” Mortiz said.
…Ever since Republicans took full control of the Iowa Statehouse, they have passed legislation to make voting more difficult for Iowans. They claim it is for voter security reasons, even as instances of voter fraud are rare to nonexistent in the state. Most believe it is to reduce turnout from groups of voters who are more likely to support Democrats.
…On the political side, playing politics with voting during a deadly pandemic has already shown to be an extremely unpopular position for voters. Democrats won an upset victory in the early April Wisconsin Supreme Court election after Republican lawmakers forced the election to still be held in-person at the peak of the pandemic.
Miller-Meeks now goes on to face Democrat Rita Hart in the general election. In that historic primary election, Hart received 66,684 votes, more than all the five Republican candidates combined.
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