Three Iowa counties to conduct recounts Thursday as state aims to finish counting votes
Three Iowa counties will conduct administrative recounts Thursday as the state looks to tally the final outstanding votes of the 2022 election.
Des Moines, Warren and Dallas counties each have scheduled recounts to double-check some election results, although the totals in question are small.
Des Moines County believes its election night results were short by about 800 votes, while in Dallas County only four votes are in doubt. Warren County does not believe the recount will affect the results of any races.
More than 1.3 million people cast votes in this year's midterm elections, sending Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds to a second full term and delivering GOP wins up and down the ballot.
One statewide race is still outstanding. Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand led his Republican challenger, Todd Halbur, by about 3,000 votes as of 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Just after midnight Wednesday morning, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate called on Des Moines and Warren counties to conduct administrative recounts.
"Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is demanding the county auditors of both Des Moines and Warren counties to have an emergency meeting with their Board of Supervisors and proceed with administrative recounts of the impacted precincts so that Iowans can know the unofficial vote totals of the 2022 general election," Kevin Hall, a spokesperson for the Iowa secretary of state's office, said in a statement Wednesday.
Des Moines County recount: Totals short about 800 absentee votes
Des Moines County Auditor Terri Johnson plans to ask the county's board of supervisors Thursday morning to allow an administrative recount of the county's absentee ballots.
"We had 4,431 absentee ballots in our county, and according to our results only 3,600 showed up, so we’re short 831 ballots that the results did not upload," she said.
Johnson expects the recount to be completed by the end of the day Thursday. She said the issue was "human error" as employees were uploading absentee results.
She said she alerted the secretary of state's office right away when she realized her absentee results weren't lining up correctly and informed them she would conduct a recount.
"We want to make sure that everything is balancing and correct," Johnson said. "We don’t want anything hanging out there."
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The updated results could affect the vote totals in Iowa House District 99 in Des Moines and Lee counties.
The Associated Press called that race for Republican Matthew Rinker over Democratic state Rep. Dennis Cohoon Wednesday afternoon. Cohoon was the longest-serving Democrat in the Iowa House.
Warren County recount: Employees pulled out thumb drive before transferring results
Warren County Auditor Traci VanderLinden will also conduct an administrative recount Thursday morning.
She said Election Day votes in five precincts weren't reported to the state with the rest of the county's results on Tuesday.
"At the end of the evening when the polls closed, the workers didn’t close out the equipment before they pulled the thumb drive out, so the numbers did not transfer to the thumb drive," she said.
When the recount is complete, it will add the Election Day votes cast in those precincts to the county's totals. VanderLinden said the precincts are small and she doesn't believe the recount will affect the results of any races.
"I don't know, but I don't think so," she said. "I don't feel like there's enough."
Dallas County recount: Only four votes in question
Dallas County Auditor Julia Helm only expects her county's recount to affect four votes.
She's asking the board of supervisors to authorize an administrative recount in four of the county's precincts. In each precinct, the count was off by one vote.
"It’s only four ballots. That’s it, total," Helm said. "That’s the only thing it’s going to change. None of our races were that close."
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Two of the Dallas County precincts had a ballot that wouldn't go through the vote tabulator because it was damaged in some way, Helm said. The county plans to remark that ballot and then recount the precinct.
Tabulators in two other precincts were off by one from the number of eligibility slips signed by voters attesting that they were legally allowed to cast ballots. So the county will recount those as well.
Linn County leaves supervisors race off ballots in one township
Linn County election officials inadvertently left off one of the county's board of supervisor races from voters' ballots in one township this year — a mistake that did not affect any other races.
Longtime Democrat state Rep. Kirsten Running-Marquardt led Republican Mark Banowetz in a race for an open Linn County supervisor seat.
Running-Marquardt received 57% of the vote to Banowetz’s 43%, according to preliminary results with all 94 precincts reporting.
But the results could be challenged because neither of the District 1 candidates’ names was included on ballots in Putnam Township.
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Linn County Auditor Joel Miller said numerous people in his office proofed the ballots as far back as two months ago, and so did local party chairs. But the error, which was caused by failing to check a box in the ballot software, wasn’t caught by anyone until noon Tuesday when Banowetz went to vote and noticed the error.
“It’s ultimately my responsibility,” he said. “I’m not blaming anybody. We’ve got to change our processes obviously. We will regroup with a plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Miller said there were 536 registered voters in Putnam Township. Running-Marquardt led Banowetz by more than 3,800 votes after all the votes had been counted, according to data from the auditor's office.
After the vote is certified Tuesday, Miller said, a candidate could request a recount or ask for a contest court, which, under Iowa code, is only justified if the number of votes not counted would change the outcome of the election.
Both sought to fill a seat held by Stacey Walker, who opted not to seek reelection.
Live blog:Election Day is underway. How is turnout so far and what problem is on one county's ballots?
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, who called the error very serious, said his office was closely monitoring this situation and was in touch with the Linn County Attorney, Iowa Attorney General and representatives from both the Republican and Democratic parties.
"No other races on the ballot were impacted," a press release from Pate’s office said.
Lynn Hicks, a spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office, said staffers in his office could not recall any time in recent history when candidates had been left off a ballot on Election Day. Any name omissions have typically been discovered before the day of the vote.
Metro Des Moines: Find election results for Polk, Dallas, Warren, Story counties and more
Banowetz said he was greatly disappointed after all the work he and volunteers put into his campaign. "They just told me it is not going to be resolved tonight," he said on Tuesday evening.
Running-Marquardt said there were 34 different ballots in District 1 and the Putnam Township one was the only one affected.
A total of 27,141 votes were cast in the race, according to the auditor.
“This is an unfortunate mistake and I look forward to election results and making sure this mistake doesn’t happen again,” Running-Marquardt said. “I want to make sure voters in Putnam Township have their voices heard.”
Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Three Iowa counties to conduct recounts as election 2022 wraps up
