Democrat Roxanna Moritz admitted that she should have gone to the Scott County Board of Supervisors for approval to pay poll workers $15 an hour during last June’s primary. She didn’t, though.
Instead, she altered timesheets of workers so that it equated with a $15 an hour wage.
“In some cases, the records reflect that a worker logged more than 24 hours in a single day,” said board chair Tony Knobbe.
That’s pretty tough to do, no matter when you take your lunch break. Working more than 24 hours in one day is quite a feat.
Iowa law explicitly states who determines compensation of extra help and clerks:
Iowa Code 331.904(4) states:
“The board shall determine the compensation of extra help and clerks appointed by the principal county officers.”
Not only did Moritz break that section of law, she also broke Iowa Code 721.1 and likely committed a class D felony.
Iowa Code 721.1 – felonious misconduct in office:
“Makes or gives any false entry, false return, false certificate or false receipt, where such entires, returns, certificates or receipts are authorized by law. Falsifies any public record, or issues any document falsely purporting to be a public document. Falsifies a writing, or knowingly delivers a falsified writing, with the knowledge that the writing is falsified and that the writing will become a public record of a government body.”
The Scott County Attorney said he did not see any legal ramifications from what Moritz did, claiming that it was handled “administratively.”
The Associated Press came to the defense of Moritz, noting it had been eight years since a Republican opposed her. But then she provided her “abrupt resignation” last month.
And that resignation had nothing to do with what she had done, according to the AP, but because of “tension that degenerated into personal attacks and threats of violence.”
The AP said it is a sign that the office “long viewed as nonpartisan” is now “fair game in the political fight about trust in the nation’s elections.”
Well, yeah, if the person in charge of running an election can morally justify falsifying time records to skirt Iowa law, there should be some concern there. And I’m sure the fact that only Democrat county auditors were the ones breaking the law in 2020 doesn’t make these offices more political in nature. Come on.
The AP said Moritz is “accused” of falsifying working hours for poll workers. I know the AP writers have an AP Stylebook, but do they still use dictionaries?
“Accused?”
Seriously?
She admitted to doing it.
One has to wonder, does the Democrat Party pay the AP for this kind of coverage, or is it pro bono?
