This is a reminder that residents of Scott County have until 4:30 PM on Tuesday to sign petitions to force a special election to replace the retiring Roxanna Moritz as Scott County Auditor.  

From an email from the Johnson County Democrats:

Action alert from Johnson County Dems

## Republican Cronyism in Scott County, and How To Stop It

Our friends in Scott County need our help.

An elected Democrat has held the office of Scott County Auditor for many decades. (I’m not exaggerating – this has been true since at least 1977.) After the current Democratic auditor Roxanna Moritz announced that she would resign her office earlier this year, it was clear that a Democrat would be elected to take her place.

Enter the Scott County Board of Supervisors, which is currently 3R – 2D. They convened to decide on how Moritz’s seat would be filled. Can you guess what they decided to do?

From Laura Belin’s report in Bleeding Heartland:

Scott County’s three Republican supervisors voted on May 25 to appoint Kerri Tompkins as the county’s new auditor, having considered no other candidates for the position, and giving members of the public no opportunity to comment.

…The three Republicans on the five-member board did not solicit applications for the vacancy or interview candidates. Rather, they decided to appoint Tompkins in a backroom deal, possibly violating Iowa’s open records law in the process.

They’re trying to shove one of their friends into the seat because they know they can’t win a special election. We know what Republicans do when they control voting systems: they disenfranchise as many Democrats as they can, and they implement every single barrier to voting that their handlers at the Heritage Foundation tell them to set up.

Scott County is the third-largest county in the state in terms of population; it’s no mystery why Republicans want one of their cronies to be handling elections over there when Kim Reynolds is on the ballot again next year.

The only way that Scott County voters can force a special election is to gather over 10,000 signatures by petition quickly. The Scott County Democrats are in the middle of just such a petition drive right now, and they need all the help they can get to pull it off.

If you have friends, relatives, or Democratic-sympathetic connections in Scott County, please direct them to the general petition drive signup link here. 

Please spread the word about the effort on social media. If you’re in Scott County often (or just want to drive up to help out this weekend), please sign up and help them gather signatures!

One final note: our IDP Chair, Ross Wilburn, will be joining one of the petition signing events in Davenport this Sunday (June 6th). You can sign up for that event by clicking here.