On June 2, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed HF 954, an omnibus election law bill. It moves the petition deadline for independent presidential candidates, and the presidential nominees of unqualified parties, from August to June. Also it changes the definition of a qualified party from a group that polled 2% for the office at the top of the ticket (president/governor) at the last election, to one that polled 2% at each of the last three elections.

No state has ever before required a group to meet the vote test three elections in a row. That would mean that if by some oddity either the Democratic or Republican Party ever failed to poll 2% for Governor or President, it couldn’t get its qualified status back for six years. In Williams v Rhodes, in 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the constitution does not permit a state to discriminate against new parties, relative to old parties, so a case could be made that the new law is unconstitutional.

The bill moves the petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, from March to June. However, that was only done because in 2018, the old March petition deadlines had been held unconstitutional, and were not being enforced.

The bill also bans ranked choice voting, and adds a sore loser law to the election code. The bill had passed the House by 65-31, and the Senate by 32-15.