“I don’t say this lightly,” one scholar wrote. “We are witnessing the greatest roll back of voting rights in this country since the Jim Crow era.”
The New York Times‘ David Leonhardt summarized the landscape nicely: “Republican legislators in dozens of states are trying to make voting more difficult, mostly because they believe that lower voter turnout helps their party win elections. (They say it’s to stop voter fraud, but widespread fraud doesn’t exist.) The Supreme Court, with six Republican appointees among the nine justices, has generally allowed those restrictions to stand.”
His piece quoted a recent assessment from University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald, who wrote, “I don’t say this lightly. We are witnessing the greatest roll back of voting rights in this country since the Jim Crow era.”
This is a classic example of Republicans rushing to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. The integrity of Iowa’s elections is not in doubt, and was never called into question. Indeed, GOP candidates fared quite well in the Hawkeye State in 2020: Donald Trump carried the state easily; Sen. Joni Ernst (R) won re-election by a larger-than-expected margin; and Republicans even flipped two of the state’s four U.S. House seats.
There wasn’t even a hint of fraud in Iowa. The state’s electoral system is sound; it worked just fine; and far-right candidates benefited.
But Iowa Republicans decided success wasn’t good enough. Their new law cuts the state’s early voting period for no reason, and lowers the amount of time polls will be open on Election Day.