By Zach Jensen,
Winneshiek County Auditor Ben Steines tests every voting machine to help protect against voter and election fraud. (File photo)
Early voting for this year’s general election started Oct. 16 in Iowa, and Winneshiek County Auditor Ben Steines said he and his staff are ready for another safe and successful election cycle.
Steines said, to vote early in Iowa, voters have two options — in-person absentee voting or mail-in absentee voting.
“If they do it by mail, they can request it up until Oct. 21, to have a ballot mailed to them,” he said. “They can request a ballot anytime — we don’t mail them out til Oct. 16. There’s a form they fill out with their information, and they need either their driver’s license number or their voter pin number, if they don’t have a driver’s license. Between 90 and 95 percent of voters just use their driver’s license number. If they’re voting early in person, it’s basically the same process as voting in person on Election Day. They’ll have to fill out a request form, which is right on the envelope where their ballot will be sealed in later. Again, they’ll have to list their driver’s license number or their pin number on that request form — before coming into our office and issued a ballot and proceed to vote.”
In some states, early votes are counted right away, but Steines said early votes aren’t counted in Iowa until Election Day.
Steines said voters can register as they come to vote.
“If they’re voting by mail, they’d just need to send in their registration form with their ballot,” he said.
The county auditor said different procedures will go into effect after Oct. 21 — the deadline for voters to pre-register — in order to protect election integrity.
“People can still register when they come in, but they also have to bring a secondary proof of residency — where they live,” Steines said. “If their driver’s license is current, they may not need a second form. But, if they haven’t updated their driver’s license, then they may need to bring in a secondary proof of residency — like a bank statement, payroll stub, utility bill, copy of their lease or their homestead tax credit filing that shows where they live.”
This same policy applies on Election Day — voters may need proof of identification and proof of residency to vote. Steines said that has been the law for about the last 20 years. He said, prior to that, if a person wasn’t registered to vote by the pre-registration deadline, they simply couldn’t vote.
“It’s easier to get registered by Oct. 21, because when you go to vote, they’ll just scan your ID, and you’ll get your ballot quicker,” he said. “If you aren’t registered by Oct. 21, it’s still possible to vote, it’s just going to take a couple minutes longer, and you’ll have to show additional paperwork.”
Steines said voters should check to make sure of the correct locations of their polling sites, because they can change between presidential elections.
“Years that end in 0, we have a census,” he explained. “Years that end in 1, we do a redistricting, and years that end in 2 is when the new polling sites and precincts go into effect.”
The auditor also said that this election cycle is different because of township trustee elections and the Decorah Community Schools bond issue. Normally, the county has 30 different ballots in a general election, Steines said, but there will be 38 different ballots in Winneshiek County this year.
“That can be complicated — making sure each person gets the right ballot,” he said. “The voter doesn’t need to know which ballot they need. We know based on their address. So they’ll be issued the correct ballot depending on where they live, which is why it’s important to have your address updated.”
Steines added that the policy regarding Luther College student voting is the same as the policy for snowbirds and other people with part-time residency — they can either vote locally or at their seasonal home.
“A student, being a part-time resident, has the same voting rights as anyone else,” he said. “They would follow the same procedures. If they’re pre-registered, they can just vote with an ID like everyone else or, if they’re not, they have to prove their residency and get a letter that shows Luther as their landlord.”
Steines said voter fraud and election interference — topics over which some public officials at various levels have expressed concern in recent years — are not issues Winneshiek County has experienced, and he added that Iowa is the gold standard for election security to which other states aspire.
“There can be bad actors anywhere,” Steines said. “We have a lot of training, and we do extensive testing of every machine, and those are not connected to the internet. After the machines are used, they’re sealed so you actually have to break the seal to get the results.”
The procedure for protecting the votes has multiple redundancies in place, which Steines said work together and make it virtually impossible for any kind of interference to occur.
“We have very stringent policies and laws to verify that our equipment is certified for use, that it’s working correctly and that it’s producing accurate results,” Steines said. “If another state has an issue, they say ‘Let’s see how Iowa does it, and see if we can do it more like them,’ because we are one of the best as far as that goes.”
Steines said he often recalls the 2000 election, when “hanging chads” in Florida caused complications in that year’s presidential race. Floridian voters that year were required to punch out small rectangular perforated pieces of paper next to the candidates for whom they were voting. However, some of the punch-card ballots contained “hanging chads,” which weren’t completely punched out, and other ballots contained dented chads that weren’t punched out at all but appeared to have been the voter’s choice. The resulting confusion caused the refusal of nearly 200,000 ballots.
“That equipment was similar to equipment that Iowa had used 30 or 40 years before,” Steines said. “And, we’d said these machines aren’t good enough and had gotten rid of them and switched to something more accurate, and Florida was still using them. It’s controversial, because the Constitution basically leaves election administration (up to the states). So, for the most part, states decide how to administer their elections. But, after the 2000 election fiasco, we now have minimum standards for what kinds of election equipment we can even use, and Iowa has always met or exceeded those standards even before they were put into place.”
Steines also emphasized that claims of poll workers attempting to interfere or intimidate voters haven’t found much footing in the state of Iowa.
“I have 60-or-so bipartisan poll workers trained for Election Day, and they’re very helpful,” the county auditor said. “Every polling site is managed by a bipartisan team of poll workers, and they’re your friends and neighbors. I don’t know about other states, but in Iowa, that bipartisan team is the statewide rule.”
Submit A Comment
Fill out the form to submit a comment. All comments require approval by our staff before it is displayed on the website.