Iowa Supreme Court Sends a Strong Message of Strict Compliance with Election Laws in Recent Ballot Access Decision
November 4, 2024
By: William & Mary Law Student Contributor
The Iowa Supreme Court has completed its expedited review of a district court ruling upholding the State Objection Panel’s decision to remove three Libertarian candidates for the US House of Representatives from the 2024 general election ballot. This decision comes in just before the Wednesday, September 11 11:59 p.m. deadline for finalizing the names on the general election ballot. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision by the Panel to remove their names from the general election ballot due to a failure to comply with statutory nomination requirements. The candidates did not dispute that their nomination process did not comply with Iowa Code §43.94, but they did raise several alternative grounds that the Panel erred in striking their name from the November ballots. The Supreme Court discussed these grounds and took the opportunity to deliver a strong message of strict compliance with election laws.
Among quickly rejected claims such as the Panel and district court improperly read the Iowa code section 43.24(1)(a) and that the objecting parties lacking standing to make objections before the Panel, was the argument that strict compliance with section §43.94 is “fundamentally unfair”. The Court quickly dismissed the first two arguments but spent a good deal of page space discussing the difference between strict and substantial compliance in Iowa code and election laws generally require strict compliance.
The Court cited numerous cases describing the general principle that election laws require strict compliance before discussing the difference between strict and substantial compliance in Iowa specifically. The court cited to language indicating that election laws are mandatory and require strict compliance, and that substantial compliance can only satisfy the requirements when the provision expressly states that it is acceptable. It also invoked broad policy considerations favoring the requirement of strict compliance with election law both as a matter of operation and public perception of the electoral process. “Iowa has many laws prescribing a substantial compliance standard; section 43.94 is not one of them.”
Within Iowa, the court believed that section 43.94 required strict rather than substantial compliance. Also, the court cited Wingert v. Urban, a case where Urban, a candidate for Des Moines City Council, was excused under exceptional circumstances from strict compliance with numerical signature requirements. The decision in that case was exceptional because the candidate relied on erroneous advice given by election official and ultimately held strict compliance before the election had occurred. The court found that Wingert supports strict compliance in this case. The court was not persuaded that strict compliance with Iowa 43.94 is fundamentally unfair as the reason they needed to comply with the procedure was of their own doing. The candidates could have qualified for the November election ballot like the other political party candidates had, by filing nomination petitions with signatures. They relied on an alternate form procedure for qualifying for the ballot afforded by Iowa law, and by electing to do so they needed to do so in compliance with that procedure. They by their own admission failed to do so.
The idea of strict compliance with election laws goes hand and hand with the reaction to the recent 2020 presidential election. The broad policy concerns surrounding public perception of the election process. Iowa was one of a handful of states to enact more restrictive voting laws after the 2020 election. In affirming the decision of the Panel and district court, the court is making a strong message that election laws need to be met with strict compliance, a message that will hopefully instill greater confidence in the election process going into November.