Responsive Gov’s Grade TL;DR

While Iowa improved technical processes like recount procedures, the Legislature also enacted inefficient verification mandates. The new laws create a complicated post-registration review system and authorize poll workers to question voters’ citizenship status. Because these measures add significant complexity where streamlined solutions existed, the state earned a B-.

Looking Back

Where Iowa Started at the Beginning of 2025

• Automatic Voter Registration: No
• Online Voter Registration: DMV ID
• Same-Day Registration: Yes
• Restoration of Rights: Some Lifetime Disenfranchisement
• Vote by Mail: No-Excuse
• Electronic Registration Information Center Member: No
• Early Voting Opportunities: Regular Ballot Early Voting
• ID Requirements: ID Requested, but not Required

Relying on the Cost of Voting Index for Iowa as of 2024, we considered the state a middle tier state for pre-existing voting policy and compared its 2025 activity against other middle tier states.

How Our Tier Compares

• COVI (2024): 24th
• EPI Score (2022): 7th

2025: This Past Year

Legislative Action

This year the Iowa General Assembly made several improvements to its election laws, including allowing the use of e-pollbooks and standardizing the recount process, but it also enacted changes that allow pollworkers to challenge voters’ citizenship status at the polls and institute cumbersome voter list maintenance procedures.

• HB 954 allows pollworkers to challenge voters on their citizenship status potentially leading to indiscriminate challenges. The bill also authorizes the use of of state-approved e-pollbooks, clarifies that the secretary of state, as the state registrar of voters, can contract with state and federal government agencies as well as private entities to verify voter registration data and may adopt rules for the use of those sources, authorizes the state registrar and county commissioners to use those sources for voter list maintenance, and requires the department of transportation to send the state registrar lists of individuals that submitted documents indicating non-citizenship to ensure noncitizens are not registered to vote.
• HB 928 changes the laws for election recounts to create uniformity in the process. It creates set thresholds for recounts and changes the makeup of election recount boards to require county auditors and staff to lead the board instead of individuals chosen by the candidates requesting the recounts.