Midterm elections are held every four years, in between presidential elections. While they usually do not receive as much attention as presidential elections, they determine the makeup of state and national legislatures, as well as other local positions. In this year’s midterm election, people can also vote on whether a new gun ownership law will be added to the Iowa Constitution.

“Voting is one way that we can enact a lot of change in our country. You’re choosing the people who are representing you and are proposing and implementing policies that will impact you and your community,” said Olivia Boeglin ’23.

Any American citizen over the age of eighteen, or who will be eighteen before November 8, is eligible to vote in the midterm elections, as long as they have not been convicted of a felony or had their voting privileges revoked for another reason.

There are several ways to register to vote. You can go to the Johnson County Administration building at 913 South Dubuque Street. You can also print and fill out a paper registration form at home and send it to your county auditor. Or, you could fill out an online form available through the Iowa Department of Transportation. In order to fill out these forms, you will need a valid Iowa driver’s license or other forms of ID, and the last five digits of your social security number.

The deadline to register is Oct. 24, if you want to vote by mail or by absentee ballot. However, if you miss this deadline, you can still vote at the polling place if you bring a valid Iowa driver’s license with your current address. If your address has changed, you will also need a piece of mail you have received or a bank statement that will confirm your new address.

“In Iowa [the voter registration process] is super easy. I know you can mail in or drop off a paper request, but I just did mine online, which was super easy. I didn’t have to mail anything or drive anywhere,” said Boeglin.

Because of the importance of elections, Iowa has procedures in place to prevent fraud or errors.

“Iowa uses paper ballots so, if we need to, we can go back and manually count the ballots,” said Alex Stanton, a Johnson County election technician.

Iowa polling places also test their equipment before every election, by giving the machine ballots with a known outcome, to make sure that no ballots were incorrectly added or lost.

Additionally, Johnson County teams up with local groups to encourage voting in our area.

“We don’t have enough staff to do anything to support voter registration, but we partner with university and volunteer programs and provide them with all the resources they would need,” said Stanton.