Jasper County precinct audited after overreported election results

Election officials authorized by the Jasper County Auditor’s Office on Monday hand-counted 561 ballots cast at the Clear Creek/Poweshiek (CC/POW) precinct as part of an audit ordered by the Iowa Secretary of State late last week.

Preliminary results gathered from the Mingo-based precinct were originally overreported by auditors, who — after correcting their mistake — found that the tight race for Iowa’s Second Congressional District seat had been affected.

Initially, the Republican candidate, Sen. Mariannete Miller-Meeks, was the presumed winner, leading Democratic opponent Rita Hart by only 282 votes. But once the discrepancy had been found and reported, Hart gained 34 votes.

Miller-Meeks lost a crucial 373 votes, as well as her lead in the race.

Iowa Secretary of State and Commissioner of Elections Paul Pate ordered the local auditor’s office to institute a countywide recount, later acknowledging this would have likely been done with or without his office’s involvement.

The recount occurred last weekend and went “perfectly,” Jasper County Auditor Dennis Parrot said. An audit of the CC/POW precinct was one of the final steps in the verification process. Checks and balances in action.

"Human error is unfortunate, but we are human," Pate reasoned. "We put enough checks and balances in to help us catch those before we certify an election, and that's exactly what has transpired here."

Part of the reason why the audit is taking place is to reassure voters of the system’s validity. Pate acknowledged that some voters might distrust the results of their election system. There’s a lot of emotion that goes into an election.

But accuracy is still — above all else — the main goal.

Again, Pate stressed preliminary results are just that until they're officially certified or canvassed. Both campaigns involved in the Second Congressional District race, he added, may "challenge" any of the counties in their region.

“They can ask for recounts to make sure that there’s accuracy,” Pate said, noting this must be done by Nov. 13. “If that’s what they choose to do, we’ll be there to administer those and make sure they’re done right.”

Pate said the campaigns can ask all of the counties for a recount if they wanted to, but he doesn’t believe they’d do that. Strategically, campaigns want to pick the counties where they think they can pick up favorable votes.

“Or if they think there’s a county with a problem, they might want to have that one recounted,” Pate said. “And they might not even want the whole county. They’ll say, ‘I want these 10 precincts.’”

If Miller-Meeks or Hart ask for a recount in Jasper County, for instance, the auditor’s office will have to go through this entire process once again, Pate confirmed. However, the secretary of state doesn’t know why they would do that.

“They kind of got a freebie here,” Pate said. “It’s been done so they can see that nothing changed. So why do it again? I think they would move on to other counties.”

Audits of precincts are common. Parrott said every year the Jasper County Auditor’s Office chooses one precinct to hand-count audit. Poll workers of different parties are divided in pairs to look at each individual ballot.

“And they’re recording that vote on a separate piece of paper,” Parrott said on Monday morning. “They’re going to go through all 561 for every race on the ballot. That means for judges, the constitutional amendment.”

When poll workers finish, they will get together and total their results. Parrott expected the results from the audit to match or be very similar (barring any undervotes) to his office’s corrected results. He was right.

According to the results of the audit shared on the county’s election website, the tally book’s total of the CC/POW precinct was: 139 votes to Hart, 404 votes to Miller-Meeks and 18 undervotes.

The audit board’s findings were similar: 139 votes to hart, 405 votes to Miller-Meeks and 17 undervotes.

Parrott has participated in one other recount in his 16 years as an auditor, but it was much smaller. It was a precinct in Valeria and it only involved five ballots for a city election. At the time, there were only 35-40 people living in Valeria.

Of course, that recount probably wasn’t as consequential as the Second Congressional District race. Parrott hopes the audit and last weekend’s recount will let people know that not all elections are organized perfectly.

Procedures set by the state have worked “very well” to ensure that accuracy is upheld, even when mistakes happen.

“We have humans involved, we have machines involved — and both can either break down or make mistakes. We have to keep that in mind,” Parrott said. “What we do have is credibility and transparency that the auditor’s offices all over the state have one goal in mind, one job in mind. And that is to get it right.”

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com