Scott County has a problem and it needs to be addressed. The county auditor, Roxanna Moritz, broke state law when she decided to pay primary election help $15 an hour. But it’s worse than that because Moritz attempted to hide it.
She didn’t just pay $15 an hour, she falsified time records in order to pay $15 an hour — which shows she knew what she was doing was wrong and against the law.
Scott County Attorney, Michael Walton, told The Iowa Standard he doesn’t foresee his office getting involved because Moritz had no criminal intent and couldn’t mislead herself.
Admittedly, I am no lawyer. But I do believe criminal intent, in this case, is pretty obvious to anyone who might not be blinded by partisanship — both Moritz and Walton are Democrats.
Moritz flat out defrauded the taxpayers of Scott County. She has no right to take unauthorized dollars and pay it to whoever she wants to.
She may not have misled herself, but she certainly misled the taxpayers. Auditors are typically seen as the “taxpayers’ watchdog.” But in this case, the watchdog went on the attack against the taxpayers.
Her actions are reckless, inconsiderate and illegal.
Yet the county attorney sees no reason to get involved.
Laws for thee, but not for me.
Typical 2020.
It gets worse, though. Keep in mind that Moritz, who is elected to be auditor by the people is also tasked by the state to oversee elections in Scott County.
While Taylor says that the documents were “internal,” you could say that Moritz filling the role as county auditor as elected by the people is separate from the role designated to her by the state as the overseer of elections in Scott County.
Consider, if Moritz is willing to break the law and falsify time records, what other laws might she be willing to break and what other records (or election ballots) might she be willing to falsify?
Scott County, after all, has had the majority of the problems when it comes to Iowa’s Second Congressional District race between Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Rita Hart.
In nearly every other county, there was only a difference of zero, one, two, three votes, which is understandable. In Johnson County, it was four votes.
But Scott County provided a 26-vote gain for Hart, the Democrat.
The overwhelming majority of all the changes in the entire district was in one county.
Moritz also claimed there was a scanning error that resulted in 35 ballots from military members and other overseas Iowans that were not counted. There were also 131 absentee ballots that showed up for the recount but weren’t included in the county’s post-election canvass.
These aren’t just simple tabulation errors.
These are problems isolated in one county. The same county with a corrupt auditor who broke the law earlier this year.
The idea that she will seemingly not face consequences for her actions is unbelievable.
Or is it?
Perhaps it isn’t surprising to see a Democrat county attorney have little or no interest in applying the law to a Democrat county auditor.
But it is disturbing.
Both Walton and Moritz are failing to uphold their elected duties. They’re both failing their constituents.
