Iowa — 3rd District

Libertarian congressional candidate Marco Battaglia says a state panel was wrong to remove him from the general election ballot for failing to run under his legal name.

Battaglia, who is running for the 3rd Congressional District in central Iowa, said he filed a lawsuit Thursday, July 2, asking a Polk County judge to reverse the State Objection Panel's June 15 decision keeping him off the ballot.

The panel ruled 2-1 that Battaglia failed to qualify because he submitted an affidavit of candidacy and nominating papers that do not match his legal name, Mark T. Andersen.

The 3rd District race is expected to be highly competitive, and having a third-party candidate on the ballot could affect the outcome. Republican U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn and Democrat Sarah Trone Garriott have qualified for the ballot.

Battaglia said in his appeal that nothing in Iowa law requires a candidate to use their legal name.

"This case is about following the law as the Legislature wrote it," Battaglia said in a statement. "Nothing in Iowa law says a candidate must appear on the ballot using only a legal name. The State Objections Panel added that requirement on its own … after accepting my name on the ballot multiple times before."

Battaglia previously appeared on Iowa ballots as a candidate for attorney general in 2018 and lieutenant governor in 2022. He ran for Congress in 2024 as a write-in candidate after failing to qualify for the ballot.

He ran as Marco Battaglia in those elections and also uses the name for his heavy metal band, Dark Mirror, and his heavy metal podcast, Heavy Radio.

"'Marco Battaglia' is not a fraudulent identity but a long-established professional, personal and electoral name by which voters have known him," Battaglia's lawsuit states.

Battaglia said the panel's majority, comprised of Secretary of State Paul Pate and Attorney General Brenna Bird, both Republicans, incorrectly interpreted Iowa law in ruling he failed to qualify. Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand voted to allow Battaglia to appear on the ballot.

Iowa Code section 45.3 requires candidates to submit an affidavit of candidacy including "the candidate's name in the form the candidate wants it to appear on the ballot."

Battaglia argues in his lawsuit that the law does not say that the candidate must use their legal name or that they may not use a stage name or other professional name.

"If the Legislature wanted to require a candidate to use their legal name or only a variation of a legal name, it could have done so," Battaglia's lawsuit states.

Pate and Bird, in a written decision for the panel's majority, noted that Iowa Code section 45.5 requires "the name of the candidate" to be included on the candidate's nominating papers and says the candidate's paperwork "shall be rejected if the affidavit lacks … the candidate's name."

"I don’t think Iowa law allows someone to run for office under a fictitious name that’s not their name," Bird said June 15 at the panel's hearing.

The panel wrote that other states that allow candidates to run using a nickname have laws allowing the candidate to do so.

"Iowa does not have such a nickname statute enacted," Pate and Bird wrote in the panel's decision. "It thus appears that the default rule across the nation is that candidates may not run under a stage-name identity unless statute expressly allows. And Iowa's statutes do not."

Pate and Bird said the name Marco Battaglia "is likely to mislead voters as to his identity."

Battaglia disagreed, saying he "did not use the name 'Marco Battaglia' to conceal his identity."

"He disclosed his legal identity, signed his affidavit, participated in the hearing and submitted supporting materials," Battaglia says in the lawsuit.

Sand wrote in a dissent that the panel should not be allowed to bar Battaglia from the ballot because the secretary of state's office has allowed him to appear on previous Iowa ballots as Marco Battaglia.

"This candidate has run under this name multiple times," Sand wrote. "The hundreds of thousands of Iowans who voted for Marco Battaglia would be ill-served by the candidate needing to assume a name on the ballot that has never been listed before."