CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — A judge is ordering an Iowa county to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, agreeing with President Trump’s campaign that the county elections commissioner overstepped by pre-filling them with voters’ personal information.
Judge Ian Thornhill issued a temporary injunction that orders Linn County Auditor Joel Miller to contact those voters in writing to inform them that the forms should not have been pre-filled with their information and cannot be processed.
Instead, voters will have to either fill out new blank requests for absentee ballots or vote in-person on Election Day.
At issue was Miller’s decision to send absentee ballot request forms to about 140,000 county voters in July that were pre-filled with their personal information.