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Dem: Combine more elections
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · September 18, 2014
Brad Anderson said the tone set by current Secretary of State Matt Schultz suggests voter fraud is so rampant it discourages “a lot” of voters from showing up to the polls.
He also criticized as wasteful spending the combined $250,000 spent by the Department of Criminal Investigation and the Secretary of State that found 117 illegally cast votes.
“The current secretary of state has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years of investigations to prove (a lot of people) are desperately cheating at the polls,” the Democratic candidate said. “He’s trying to prove there’s a wave of cheating. It doesn’t exist.”
Anderson, who with wife Lisa own a speech therapy office in Des Moines, visited West Branch earlier this month while campaigning.
He said the Republican incumbent increased the “visibility” of the office during his term, but did it through “highly partisan, very controversial” methods.
“We need a secretary of state who will work with Democrats, Republicans and independents,” he said during a stop at the West Branch Times.
Anderson said any secretary of state “should be focused on making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
His approach, though, focuses less on offense and more on defense. Anderson wants to expand the use of “electronic poll books” that determine if a voter is in the right location and eligible to cast a vote. Unlike the three-ring binders many polling places use, the e-poll book can reduce data-entry errors and can tell if someone has already voted.
“It cuts back on fraud before it happens,” he said, “rather than have expensive investigations after the fact.”
Many areas of the state already use poll books, Anderson said, and expanding its use to all 99 counties “would be terrific.”
He would like to increase voter turnout in Iowa to surpass Minnesota, not only in general elections but in smaller elections, like city council and school board elections, as well as local ballot initiatives.
Anderson said the secretary of state’s roughly $3 million budget would give him “very limited resources,” but he has spoken with county auditors — both Republican and Democratic — to generate ideas in hopes of improving voter turnout:
• Online voter registration -- “Nineteen other states do it, and it has broad, bipartisan support in Iowa,” he said.
• Allowing permanent vote-by-mail -- “If a voter chooses to always receive a ballot for every election, rather than individual requests, it would drastically increase participation in general, city and school board elections … The more people voting in smaller elections, the better.”
• Consolidate more elections -- “Some counties have up to six or seven elections a year … (that causes) a certain amount of election fatigue. You can save money in the long run and boost voter turnout,” Anderson said.
• Advocate for overseas members of the military to receive federal absentee ballots when requesting state ballots -- Anderson said most other states already do that, though it would take an act of the state legislature to get it started. “They are out there defending our democracy,” he said of the military, “so they ought to be able to participate in the democracy they are defending.”
Anderson also wants to make it easier for entrepreneurs to file paperwork for new businesses. He cited Missouri’s online system that “takes minutes,” versus days in Iowa.
“(I would) focus just as much on business services as election services,” he said.
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