Hawkeye Reporter

Iowa voters may need to have identification handy when they arrive at the polls following a district court judge's decision late last month.

In his decision handed down Sept. 30, Iowa 5C District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin has upheld portions of a voter ID, signed into law in 2017 by then-Gov. Terry Branstad, as allowed under the state's Constitution but struck down portions of a voting reform law that were challenged in court.

State requirement of identification at the polls is constitutional, Seidlin ruled in challenges filed last year by the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa and an Iowa State University student.  

"The evidence presented simply did not demonstrate that the burden on young voters, old voters, female voters, minority voters, poor voters and voters who are Democrats to show an approved form of identification at the polls is appreciably greater than the rest of the population," Seidlin’s ruling said.

In August of last year, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that state election officials could not implement absentee voting requirements in the 2017 voter ID law until challenges to the law were exhausted.