The scanner used to scan IDs in Johnson County to verify voters will not be used tomorrow on Election Day. The Iowa Standard was sent an audio clip of someone discussing the situation and we asked the Secretary of State’s Office to confirm.
“Our office spoke with Johnson County, and it is true that scanners will not be in use on Election Day,” said the Secretary of State’s Communications Director Kevin Hall. “Instead, they will manually look up each voter. It appears that an update to Precinct Atlas impacted the compatibility of some scanners. As is always the case, they will examine the identification provided by the voter as required by Iowa Code §49.78.”
The audio indicated it would be a “statewide” issue, but Precinct Atlas isn’t used in every Iowa county.
The Johnson County Auditor’s office told The Iowa Standard that Precinct Atlas will be used tomorrow, but they will not be using the ID scanners.
Precinct Atlas is a program used to look up voters.
“We will not be scanning IDs,” the Johnston County Auditor’s office said.
Workers will have to manually look up the voters.
[…] voting irregularities at Tuesday’s Primary Elections. Jacob Hall covers one such incidence (https://theiowastandard.com/scanner-used-to-scan-ids-in-johnson-county-will-not-be-used-in-tomorrows…), in which the Iowa’s DOT network Voter ID scanners were unable to function, thus requiring […]
I am a Precinct Election Official in Black Hawk County. My understanding is that any Iowa county using Precinct Atlas as their e-poll book software was unable to scan the voters’ ID. Evidently an update to Precinct Atlas broke the scan feature. During training we were assured that the scanners would be working for the general election in November.
Having said that, looking up the voters manually for the primary election was not a problem. We asked for their ID and used it to type in their name. It may not be quite as fast as scanning the ID, but it doesn’t take much time. I don’t think the lack of a scanner created any problem.