Hunter
09/14/20
A judge has ruled against Johnson County auditor Travis Weipert regarding absentee ballot requests sent to voters with personal information already filled in.
The Trump campaign and Republican Party groups filed suit against Johnson, Linn and Woodbury county auditors, seeking those requests to be voided. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said that bipartisan legislation passed at the end of the 2020 session empowered his office to send absentee ballot requests to all registered voters in the state, but auditors would no longer be able to fill in missing information using their databases.
Judge Ian Thornhill sided with the Trump campaign in the Johnson County case over the weekend, giving them a clean sweep. Thornhill previously voided the Linn County ballots, and Judge Patrick Tott also found in favor of the Republicans in a Woodbury County case. Over 60,000 requests for absentee ballots from those counties are now voided.
Pate has been quoted as saying that as much as 80 percent of the votes cast in the November general election could be cast using the absentee option.
