Iowa Code § 49.86

This is the official text of Iowa Code § 49.86, part of Iowa’s Code — part of the compiled statutory law of Iowa, published by the state as "Code." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Failure to vote — surrender of ballot.

Official statutory text

Any voter who, after receiving an official ballot, decides not to vote, shall, before entering the voting booth, surrender to the election officers the official ballot which has been given to the voter, and such fact shall be noted on the election records. A refusal to surrender such ballot shall subject the person so offending to immediate arrest and the penalties provided for violation of this chapter.

[C97, §1117; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §803; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §49.86]

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.