Iowa’s top election official says warrants have been issued for a citizen of Bosnia and two Canadian citizens, suspected of illegally voting in Iowa’s 2010 election. Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz says the latest cases of suspected voter fraud came from Page and Dallas Counties. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says it issued a citation to appear in court for 28-year old Tehvedin Murgic, of Clive. Officials say he’s a citizen of Bosnia who registered to vote on Nov. 2^nd, 2010. Arrest warrants were also issued for 66-year old Laurie McCarroll and 53-year old Leonard Blower, both of Shenandoah.

The DCI says the two Canadian Citizens registered and voted in a school election in Sept. 2011. Officials say the two are no longer living in the United States. Matt Schultz says the state agency in charge of the investigation didn’t publicize the arrests, which came in the week before Election Day. “It was one of those situations where I don’t think the DCI wanted to make a big deal before the election,” Schultz says. “I believe there’ll be other arrests coming here shortly.”

Schultz and his staff combed through records and came up with a list of 12-hundred people suspected of being “non-citizens” and illegally voting in the 2010 election. So far, the single agent from the Division of Criminal Investigation who’s been working his way through that list has identified five cases in which non-citizens are accused of voting. “It’s a slow process,” Schultz says. “I mean, keep in mind this investigator interviews these people individually, one by one. We had 1200 people who potentially may have voted when they weren’t citizens, so it takes time. That’s just the nature of the beast.”

Two other cases involve felons who are accused of illegally voting in the 2010 election. On Monday Schultz announced he would ask legislators to consider requiring “signature verification” for absentee ballots, to curb fraud, since nearly half of all the votes cast in the 2012 election were from absentee ballots. “It’s basically a reader that’s going to read the signature, match it to the signature on file and then flag potential issues,” Schultz says. “If there are, then there’ll be a process for the county auditor’s office to contact those voters.”

Schultz says each county would have to invest in the technology, since voter registration records are kept by the auditors in Iowa’s 99 counties.

(Information from Radio Iowa and the Associated Press)