Comment on Iowa Secretary of State vows ‘huge fix’ to list of felons banned from voting

DES MOINES — Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says his office is undertaking a major hands-on review of the state’s felon database to ensure all eligible registrants are able to exercise their constitutional right at the ballot box in the 2020 presidential election.Iowa is one of only two states — Kentucky is the other — that permanently bar felons from voting unless they petition the governor for a restoration of rights.Yet the state’s list of roughly 69,000 felons who cannot vote is riddled with inaccuracies, according to a Des Moines Register investigation published earlier this year after scrutinizing elections in six counties.The Republican secretary of state said Tuesday a “clean” felon database is needed, so he “repurposed” some existing staff and plans to hire more to review — electronically and manually — more than 90,000 files.He said the goal is to have an accurate list in county auditors’ hands before the 29-day absentee balloting window opens in October 2020, heading into the Nov.