47.8  Voter registration commission — composition — duties.
  1.  A state voter registration commission is established which shall meet as necessary to make and review policy, adopt rules, and establish procedures to be followed by the registrar in discharging the duties of that office, and to promote interagency cooperation and planning.
  a.  The commission shall consist of the state commissioner of elections or the state commissioner’s designee, the state chairpersons of the two political parties whose candidates for president of the United States or governor, as the case may be, received the greatest and next greatest number of votes in the most recent general election, or their respective designees, and a county commissioner of registration appointed by the president of the Iowa state association of county auditors, or an employee of the commissioner.
  b.  The commission membership shall be balanced by political party affiliation pursuant to section 4A.12. Members shall serve without additional salary or reimbursement.
  c.  The state commissioner of elections, or the state commissioner’s designee, shall serve as chairperson of the state voter registration commission.
  2.  The registration commission shall prescribe the forms required for voter registration by rules promulgated pursuant to chapter 17A.
  3.  a.  The registrar shall provide staff services to the commission and shall make available to it all information relative to the activities of the registrar’s office in connection with voter registration policy which may be requested by any commission member. The registrar shall also provide to the commission at no charge statistical reports for planning and analyzing voter registration services in the state.
  b.  The commission may authorize the registrar to employ such additional staff personnel as it deems necessary to permit the duties of the registrar’s office to be adequately and promptly discharged. Such personnel shall be employed pursuant to chapter 8A, subchapter IV.
  4.  The registration commission shall annually adopt a set of standard charges to be made for the services the registrar is required to offer to the several commissioners, and for furnishing of voter registration records which are requested by persons other than the registrar, the state commissioner or any commissioner pursuant to section 48A.38. These charges shall be sufficient to reimburse the state for the actual cost of furnishing such services or information, and shall be specified by unit wherever possible. The standard charges shall be adopted by the commission by January 15 of each calendar year.
  5.  In complaint proceedings held pursuant to section 47.1 in which one of the respondents is the state commissioner of elections, the presiding officer shall be a panel consisting of all members of the state voter registration commission, except the state commissioner of elections or the state commissioner’s designee.
[C77, 79, 81, §47.8]
93 Acts, ch 143, §11; 94 Acts, ch 1169, §48; 95 Acts, ch 189, §6, 7; 2003 Acts, ch 145, §152; 2004 Acts, ch 1083, §5, 37; 2008 Acts, ch 1032, §146; 2024 Acts, ch 1170, §88
Referred to in §39.3, 47.1