Auditor to hold voter registration site at Fareway Tuesday

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - Tuesday, Sept. 26 is National Voter Registration Day and the Lee County Auditor's office is taking advantage of the opportunity to engage voters and address questions with new voter ID laws.

Nikki Sugars, the elections administrator in the auditor's office, said the staff will be at Hy-Vee in Keokuk from 10 to 11 a.m. on Tuesday and will also be at Fareway in Fort Madison from 2 to 3 p.m.

"We think it's just helpful to the voters to have it out there someplace where voters are," Sugars said.

Lee County has an overall population according to the last census of 35,862 of which 23,383 are registered to vote. But Sugars said the population numbers include children under the age of 17 1/2 so she didn't know what percentage of actual eligible voters in Lee County are registered.

Sugars said the booths will also give voters a chance to ask any questions or get information on new voter ID laws recently enacted.

"We're also using it as an educational time to let people know of the new voter ID laws," she said. "If you don't have a valid driver's license or valid state ID card in the DOT's system by December you will be issued a state voter ID card in the mail sometime after they check everything against their database.

Voters won't technically have to provide an identification at election sites until January of 2019. Sugars said the new law was probably a result of a crackdown on voter fraud.

"We haven't really heard of any voter id fraud rampant around here, but they are hearing of it in the bigger metro areas."

2017 elections, election, elections, fareway, lee county, Nikki Sugars, Voter registration, voters

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