(Radio Iowa) – After two judges ruled tens of thousands of absentee ballot request forms from Woodbury and Linn Counties are void, the Iowa Democratic Party is filing a lawsuit seeking to overturn those rulings. Last week, the REPUBLICAN Party and the Trump campaign successfully argued in court that the forms violated a state order because voter I-D numbers were included — and the secretary of state had ordered all forms to be BLANK. Iowa Democratic Party chairman Mark Smith spoke at an online news conference this (Monday) morning. “The Iowa Democratic Party and our partners are fighting back against these voter suppression tactics,” Smith says.

Kay Pence is vice president of the Iowa Alliance for Retired Americans which represents many retired trade union members. She says the Republicans’ lawsuit seeks to reduce the number of Iowans who vote by mail. “I just don’t think we need to create more anxiety for voters,” she said, “especially for those of us who have voted mail for years.”

The Democratic committees that support candidates for the U.S. House and Senate are part of the lawsuit as well. The lawsuit challenges the Iowa Secretary of State’s authority to order county auditors to send blank absentee ballot request forms to voters. Auditors in Johnson, Linn and Woodbury County sent forms that included voter I-D numbers.