Absentee ballot requests begin in Iowa for Nov. 3 election

Iowans were able to begin requesting absentee ballots for the 2026 general election on Tuesday, even as the Trump administration continues to fight in court for changes in the process of voting by mail.

Tuesday was officially 70 days before the Nov. 3 election, which means Iowans can begin submitting Absentee Ballot Request Forms to their local county auditor’s office in order to receive a mailed absentee ballot for the election. The deadline for submitting an absentee ballot request form is 5 p.m. Oct. 19 — 15 days before the election.

The written application doesn’t need to be notarized or witnessed, but must include information that verifies the voter’s identity, such as a person’s Iowa driver’s license or non-operator ID number, or the PIN number on an Iowa Voter ID Card.

Iowa county auditors can begin mailing out absentee ballots Oct. 14. The ballots must be received by the county auditor by 8 p.m. on Nov. 3, Election Day, in order to be counted. If a person is not able to return their absentee ballot to their county auditor’s office on Election Day, there are still options to vote — voters can surrender their voted absentee ballot at a polling location and cast a regular ballot, or vote using a provisional ballot if they cannot surrender the absentee ballot.

The process of beginning absentee ballot requests comes in 2026 one day after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unsigned emergency docket opinion finding 23 Democratic-led states do not have standing to stop his executive order related to mail-in ballot processing by the U.S. Postal Service.

Trump executive order still in court

Trump signed an executive order in March that directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. It also required the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes.

Despite the Monday ruling, another U.S. District Court decision blocking the USPS from carrying out parts of the executive order in a case filed by the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts and several other voting rights groups, remains in place.

A spokesperson for Iowa Secretary of State’s office said in an email the state office overseeing elections expects “no direct impacts on Iowans as a result of this ruling.” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, told reporters at the Iowa State Fair earlier in August he was opposed to the federal government’s recent approach to regulating mail-in ballots.

“Iowans really lean into being able to vote in the mail,” Pate said. “We have a very high percentage of that. We’ve done it right in the state. And I caution the White House and anybody who wants to listen to us in D.C. (to) come out and look at us in Iowa. I feel pretty good about how we do it here. So take a couple of pages from our playbook, and you’ll be maybe feel more comfortable. I understand where some of their frustration might come from, where some of their passion. But let’s not lose sight that — my humble opinion — the Constitution says elections are run by the states. And with all due respect to the president, I hope he’ll trust Iowans to run our elections.”