47.7 State registrar of voters.

1. The state commissioner of elections is designated the state registrar of voters, and shall regulate the preparation, preservation, and maintenance of voter registration records, the preparation of precinct election registers for all elections administered by the commissioner of any county, and the preparation of other data on voter registration and participation in elections which is requested and purchased at actual cost of preparation and production by a political party or any resident of this state. The registrar shall maintain a log, which is a public record, showing all lists and reports which have been requested or generated or which are capable of being generated by existing programs of the data processing services of the registrar. In the execution of the duties provided by this chapter, the state registrar of voters shall provide the maximum public access to the electoral process permitted by law.

2. a. On or before January 1, 2006, the state registrar of voters shall implement in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner, a single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration file defined, maintained, and administered at the state level that contains the name and registration information of every legally registered voter in the state and assigns a unique identifier to each legally registered voter in the state. The state voter registration system shall be coordinated with other agency databases within the state, including, but not limited to, state department of transportation driver’s license records, judicial records of convicted felons and persons declared incompetent to vote, and Iowa department of public health records of deceased persons.

b. On or after January 1, 2007, a county shall not establish or maintain a voter registration system separate from the state voter registration system. Each county shall provide to the state registrar the names, voter registration information, and voting history of each registered voter in the county in the form required by the state registrar.

c. A state or local election official may obtain immediate electronic access to the information contained in the computerized voter registration file. All voter registration information obtained by a local election official shall be electronically entered into the computerized voter registration file on an expedited basis at the time the information is provided to the local election official. The state registrar shall provide such support as may be required to enable local election officials to electronically enter the information into the computerized voter registration file on an expedited basis. The list generated from the computerized file shall serve as the official voter registration list for the conduct of all elections for federal office in the state.

d. The state registrar shall prescribe by rule the procedures for access to the state voter registration file, security requirements, and access protocols for adding, changing, or deleting information from the state voter registration file.

[C77, 79, 81, §47.7; 81 Acts, ch 34, §10]

83 Acts, ch 176, §1, 10; 86 Acts, ch 1245, §313; 94 Acts, ch 1169, §47; 98 Acts, ch 1217, §34; 2004 Acts, ch 1083, §4, 37; 2006 Acts, ch 1003, §1, 2

Referred to in §39.3, 48A.10A, 53.2, 53.10