The Iowa Senate approved a bill Monday that will change how Iowa handles the recount process in elections. It passed along party lines as all Republicans supported the bill while all Democrats opposed it.
Republican State Sen. Ken Rozenboom pointed out that Iowa is different from every other state because other states use election officials for recounts while Iowa asks campaign officials to appoint people to conduct the recount process. Rozenboom said that creates a potential conflict of interest.
“We’re essentially putting candidates in charge of counting their own votes,” he said.
But House File 928 will make changes to the recount procedure in the Hawkeye State. Currently, there are also no thresholds established to determine whether a recount is warranted or justified. Candidates can request a recount under current law whether the election was decided by five votes or by 15 percent.
When a recount is requested, not every ballot must be recounted and not every ballot has to be recounted the same way, he added. There is no way for a county auditor or Secretary of State to enforce recount rules.
“No uniformity, no reliability or enforcement and that creates distrust of the system,” Rozenboom said.
Under the bill, which now heads to the desk of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, lower-volume elections such as legislative races and local elections will need to be decided by one percent or be within 50 votes in order to request a recount. In statewide or federal races, a candidate must be within 0.15 percent of the apparent winner to request a recount.
The bill also changes how a recount must be called. In local races, the request will be made to the county auditor as it is done now. But for legislative, statewide or federal races, a recount request will have to be made to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will notify the respective county auditors.
Rather than campaigns conducting the recount, the bill will have the county auditor and the office’s staff, including election poll workers, doing the recount. Rozenboom said that under the current system, the people selected to conduct the recount may be handling ballots for the first time without any training, education or experience. Auditors are also required to have an equal number of recount workers from each political party to avoid any real or perceived bias.
Each campaign is allowed five observers per county to oversee the recount process.
