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Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate tweeted out some information late Friday afternoon in response to a story by NPR. Pate called it a “highly misleading story.”

The claim? Poll closures and consolidation will affect 30 percent of Iowa’s registered voters. Many of those affected will be residents in urban areas, which reliably vote Democrat.

It is true that polling places are being shuffled across the state. But county auditors are trying to handle that as best they can. We’ll have much more on that later.

In the meantime, NPR ignores some pretty key facts.

Iowa will have more than 1,230 polling sites open from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m. on Nov. 3. And while NPR claims 30 percent of Iowa’s voters will be impacted by these polling location changes, it’s important to note that more than 885,000 Iowans have already voted.

NPR said they did not take those numbers into account in their “highly misleading story,” Pate tweeted.

“They are distributing misinformation four days before election day,” he tweeted. “Not acceptable.”

For the record, not a single polling place has closed. Some, though, have consolidated.

Author: Jacob Hall

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