UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Iowa Supreme Court to hear arguments in Iowa City Sept 6 on Linn County Auditor’s election-security case

by Rox Laird | September 3, 2024

The Iowa Supreme Court’s first oral argument of the 2024-25 term is scheduled to be heard Sept. 6 at the University of Iowa College of Law. This case addresses the question of whether a county commissioner of elections claiming a violation of a federal election law by the Iowa Secretary of State is entitled to a contested case hearing before the Iowa Voter Registration Commission, and whether the county commissioner has standing to seek judicial review of an adverse decision by the Commission.

Arguments in Miller v. Iowa Voter Registration Commission will be heard by the justices in Levitt Auditorium on the U of I campus beginning at 1:30 p.m. [Go to On Brief’s “Cases in the Pipeline” page to read the briefs filed with the Court in this case.]

Linn County Auditor Joel Miller appeals the Polk County District Court’s denial of his petition for judicial review of the Iowa Voter Registration Commission’s dismissal of a complaint filed by Miller, acting in his capacity as Linn County Elections Commissioner, against Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, claiming Pate violated the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

Miller argues Pate, acting in his capacity as State Commissioner of Elections, violated HAVA by failing to maintain the security of Iowa’s statewide voter registration system as required by the federal Act against hackers who might remove, change, or modify voter registration records. The Commission granted Pate’s motion to dismiss Miller’s complaint without providing Miller the opportunity to have his arguments heard at a contested case hearing on the merits of his complaint.

The district court, holding that Miller lacked standing, denied his petition for review. Miller appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court and urges the Court to reverse the district court and remand the case to the Voter Registration Commission with instruction to convene a contested case proceeding on the merits.

Miller argues, among other things, that he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing before the Commission to consider the merits of his HAVA-violation allegation. Miller argues the Act requires that, at the request of a complainant, “there shall be a hearing on the record.” He maintains the Commission failed to abide by that requirement in denying him the evidentiary hearing on his complaint he sought.

In response, the Commission argues that a “hearing on the record” required by the Act is not a “contested case hearing” or an “evidentiary hearing” complete with the right to produce evidence because HAVA requires neither. And the State says Miller received the required hearing on the record by the commission where it heard arguments from both Miller and Secretary Pate.

As for Miller’s argument that he has standing to seek judicial review of the Commission’s action, the State cites the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Dickey v. Iowa Ethics & Campaign Disclosure Board, which the State says “establishes that a person who files a complaint with an administrative agency is not aggrieved or adversely affected by, and therefore lacks standing to seek judicial review of, the agency’s dismissal of their complaint.”

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court 2024-25