Iowa Secretary of State race heats up amid public concern of voter security
The image of Republican incumbent Paul Pate (left) is the courtesy of Pate for Secretary of State, and the image of Democratic candidate Joel Miller (right) is the courtesy of Iowa Public Radio.
Incumbent Republican Paul Pate faces a challenge from Democrat Joel Miller in the race for Secretary of State.
Pate said he is conscious of all the misinformation that flies around social media but emphasized how it is a difficult process to balance First Amendment rights while challenging some of the misinformation posted online.
“It is not an easy process,” Pate told the Daily. “We work with that challenge every day.”
Pate said he feels his job is to put out the facts. He said he trusts people to be able to sort the information they are consuming as truth or misinformation. Pate added that he relies on the checks and balances of the voting system to provide both access and security to voters.
Miller said the best way to balance voter security with accessibility is to not change the current checks and balances that are in place for elections. He believes conspiracy theories about compromised election security are best handled by using the burden of proof.
“Our whole system of justice and our democracy is based on innocent until proven guilty,” Miller told the Daily. “We need to apply that to elections as well.”
In Miller’s eyes, the burden of proof needs to lie with the accuser of election fraud, rather than finding proof that elections are not fraudulent.
“Trying to disprove conspiracy theories is a big waste of time,” Miller said.
Voter Security
Pate said voter security is not something that Iowans need to be worried about. He pointed to both the county auditors’ transparency and friends or neighbors from balanced parties working the polls as reassurance that the results of elections are accurate and legitimate.
Miller said voter data should be treated like money in a bank. He said he believes voter security is always a concern and that necessary precautions need to be taken to keep it protected. However, between the human and technological checks and balances we have in Iowa, Miller said Iowans have very secure elections.
Term Ideas:
One of Miller’s main ideas for a prospective term is to create automatic voter registration for 17-year-olds to vote in their next valid election cycle. He believes that the current registration process is “convoluted” and not easy to navigate.
“What we need to do is pull the social security list or the driver’s license list and say, ‘Okay, you have turned seventeen, you are automatically registered [to vote],’” Miller said.
Miller would also like to create a system for people to request absentee ballots on a permanent basis. The current process requires a person to fill out an absentee ballot request form every election. He believes that a one time absentee registration would make it easier for voters to get their desired ballot.
Pate said he is proud to have achieved record voter turnouts and the passage of same-day voter registration laws. He is adamant that today’s challenges in the voting system are the “rampant disinformation and misinformation” that surround the process.
Pate would like to address these challenges through an increase in voter education. He has worked with various organizations like the League of Women Voters and on-campus voter registration efforts but would like to continue this outreach for voter education.
Campaign Stance
Pate said his campaign is all about making sure Iowans are successful as voters. He talked about how this comes from the understanding of how important it is to vote and of the options they have to vote.
“One of the things that I have promoted very aggressively is that we have integrity in our elections but that we also have participation, and that they are not mutually exclusive,” Pate said. “You need both.”
Miller said he is running a campaign for three reasons:
- He had gotten sued by Donald Trump for issuing absentee ballot request forms to voters as Linn County Auditor during the 2020 presidential election.
- After many county auditors in Iowa were applauded for how they ran elections in 2020, the Iowa legislature enacted 30 pages worth of what Miller called “anti-voter laws” that make the voting period a smaller window of time and focused on absentee ballot rules.
- In regard to the debate about these enacted laws, Miller said the current Secretary of State was nowhere to be found.
“He was AWOL, absent without leave,” Miller said.
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