Iowa secretary of state candidate Brad Anderson with wife, Lisa, and children, Alice and Will.
The outgoing Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Matt Schultz, who pressed for a tougher voter ID law in Iowa while implying that abortion is legal and marriage equality gaining ground because supporters
cheat, ignored an
expert report pointing out that voter fraud is rarer than oxygen in the Martian atmosphere. He spent $250,000 in a fruitless search for such fraud. Schultz, who a state audit
found had paid five employees a total of $112,000 in wages even after he had let them go, and who used his office to attack presidential candidate Jon Huntsman in 2012, still has a good friend in the Republican who would like to be Iowa's next Secretary of State, Paul Pate.
Pate, who served as Iowa secretary of state from 1995 through 1998 and was Schultz's campaign manager for the job four years ago, says he wants to “continue Secretary Schultz’s good stewardship of the office.” That pathetic assessment is another reason to support Democrat Brad Anderson for the post.
What can you expect from a guy who once claimed to have graduated from the Wharton School of Business even though he'd only taken a three-week seminar at the prestigious institution and who was reprimanded and fined in 1998 for letting the secretary of state's office be used for partisan political purposes?
Like the sketchy Schultz, Pate also wants a tougher voter ID law. He's a "good friend" of Iowa Rep. Steve King, the Republican who not so long ago recalled the good old days when male property owners were the only people allowed to vote since they had "skin in the game."
Anderson and Pate held their only debate last Friday. Pulling out his driver's license, his favored prop these days, Pate said 93 percent of adult Iowans have a driver's license, implying that to ensure that the rest of the voting-age population gets a photo ID would be no big deal:
Democrat Brad Anderson countered that existing state law on the issue— which allows poll workers to request ID if they believe it's necessary to verify a voter's identity—is sufficient. A mandatory ID law could be burdensome for some voters and would represent an unnecessary expense for election administrators, he said.
"If you were to ask Iowans if they support a current voter ID law that is effective and worked for decades versus a new, expensive photo-ID law that could potentially disenfranchise thousands of Iowans," Anderson said, "I think I know exactly where they'd stand on that, and I think they'd support my plan."
Anderson has a terrific goal. He wants Iowa to replace Minnesota as the state with the highest percentage election turnout. To get there, he wants to offer online voter registration, which is being made available in a growing number of states, and wants to make it possible to permanently cast absentee ballots, widely seen in other states as a foot in the door for all-mail voting like the arrangement now in use in Washington and Oregon. Good ideas from a good candidate.
Help us put Brad Anderson into the secretary of state post in Iowa.
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