In an effort to highlight voter irregularities and push for stricter voting laws, Iowas top election official pushed statistics on alleged voter fraud that even a member of his own staff privately suggested were misleading, emails obtained by the Huffington Post reveal.

This past January, Iowas Secretary of State Paul Pate (R) introduced a bill that required those who wanted to cast a ballot to show official identification, eliminated straight party voting, and established post election audits of the vote.

This effort was part of a nationwide push by Republicans to enforce voter ID laws, even though voter fraud is virtually nonexistent . And to sell the measure, his office did what other Republicans have as well: it argued that while theres been no evidence of voter fraud in Iowa, elections are insecure and could potentially be cheated .

To substantiate his argument, Pates office drafted a statement for a reporter from the local Gazette newspaper, noting that in Iowa it appeared 41 felons had cast ballots and that more than 200 election day voter registrations, or EDRs, had bounced back. The draft statement included the caveats that the irregularities do not necessarily constitute fraud and that the state would have a more complete picture of election data come March. Pate urged his staff to release it.

We need to release info and these stats are public already. When an auditor turns them over to the county attorney or sheriff for action that pretty much makes it public. Am I missing something?, he wrote in an email.

But releasing the statistics drew an objection from Carol Olson, Pates deputy secretary of state for elections, who suggested they were misleading.

I do not believe that we should say that 41 felons illegally cast ballots. We encouraged them to use provisional ballots, so that would feel a little like we baited them to do something illegal, she wrote. And its risky to label it illegal because we dont know the circumstances. It might be illegal, but [it] might not be, if someone really believed their rights were restored. We can report the number of felons voting, but lets not call it illegal, she wrote.

Olson noted that some of the statistics suggested something nefarious when it could simply be attributed to human error.

Im also really reluctant to say that 207 EDRs (sic) from 15 counties bounced back. In the context of a discussion on election fraud, it sounds like we are suggesting that bounce backs are fraud or likely to be fraud, she wrote. First, its only a partial report. What about the other 84 counties? How does this fit into the overall process of EDRs? The vast majority of these bounce-backs are sloppy addresses from voters in too much of a hurry when they register at the polls. Thats a real reason to discourage EDR and a real reason to have pollbooks, but its not an indicator of illegal activity.

Olson said she was concerned about releasing statistics on fraud because it would push reporters to look into them more.

My reason for recommending not to provide the fraud information is that we can never provide the media enough info. No matter what we give them, they are always looking for more details, more dirt. We have no idea if any of these cases will be prosecuted or even investigated, she wrote. We have no idea how many other situations were never referred to us. I also dont want county auditors to feel reluctant to talk with us about concerning cases because they fear a reporter will be calling them up demanding more information.