Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism (https://caucus.iowawatch.org/tag/iowa-voting/)
Voters showed strong interest in this year’s mid-term election in Iowa, so much so that one county ran out of ballots, election officials from across the state said when IowaWatch contacted them today.
A new Iowa City voter who recently passed a test to become a U.S. citizen but had not yet participated in a swearing-in ceremony almost lost a chance to vote Tuesday. But County Auditor Travis Weipert tracked the voter down so that the voter could return to the polling place and cast a ballot. “I’m one of those who, I want you to vote if you’re a U.S. citizen,” Weipert said Tuesday night. The voter, at the IC22 precinct at Shimek Elementary School in Johnson County, was questioned about being eligible to vote when registering at the precinct. One of the first questions when registering asks if the person registering is a U.S. citizen.
Henry County, Iowa, ran out of ballots during the Tuesday mid-term elections. Auditor Shelly Barber told IowaWatch she only ordered enough ballots for 90 percent of the county’s registered voters, based off the turnout in the 2014 midterm election. SUPPORT NON-PROFIT JOURNALISM, DOUBLE YOUR DONATION WITH NEWSMATCH
But some precincts ran out by the end of Tuesday morning, she said. In lieu of ballots, voters across the county ended up using OpenElect Voting Interface (OVI) and OpenElect Voting Optical Scan (OVO) machines provided for blind or handicapped voters to cast their ballots. “People are a little testy if they have to wait,” Barber said.
While some first-time Iowa voters say they are well-informed about the 2018 gubernatorial race of Republican incumbent Kim Reynolds, Democrat Fred Hubbell and Libertarian Jake Porter, others getting ready to vote for the first time said they still were doing research.
Iowa voters avoided on Tuesday many of the polling problems of possible disruption or lines so long voting would be difficult that had been forecast, county auditors from across the state told IowaWatch in interviews.
One of every three Iowans – 37 percent – voted a straight ticket for the candidates of one political party in the 2014 general election, statistics the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office compiled for the first time revealed.
Iowa experienced a substantial and surprising increase in voter turnout, county auditors told IowaWatch Tuesday night.