News 2 January 2019

State House seat remains up in the air

Kayla Koether, Democratic candidate for Iowa House district 55, believes that 29 uncounted ballots in Winneshiek County are valid, and should be counted.Incoming House Minority Leader Todd Prichard, a Charles City Democrat, agrees.Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate, who is charged with overseeing the state’s elections, does not.None of them seem to have an answer to an important question: Were there other valid votes that went uncounted in the November election, and if there were, how many?“It’s a possibility,” Prichard said. “This is getting noticed because this election has such a close margin. It’s possible this happened in districts where the margin wasn’t so close, where people weren’t paying as close attention.”It’s possible the number of valid, mailed-in ballots that went uncounted could be in the thousands. More than 547,000 Iowa residents voted absentee this year, a record number for the state in an election with the highest ever turnout in a midterm election of 1.3 million voters.— For more on this story, see the Jan. 1 New Hampton Tribune and Jan. 3 Nashua Reporter.

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