The 2022 primaries were held across Iowa on Tuesday June 6. On June 9, 2022 at 8:00am an emergency meeting of the O’Brien County Board of Supervisors was convened with just 17 hours of public notice. The agenda item causing a less than 24-hour notice was for the Commissioner of Elections, Barb Rohwer, was to obtain permission to have a recount of the O’Brien County6 ballots.
According to Rohwer, at least 4 other area counties had results that caused concern. A meeting with the Secretary of State’s office had approximately 60 participants regarding primary vote results.
Rohwer explained that one precinct chair reported votes being 1 off. The process for the recount determined by the Secretary of State’s office was for the paper ballots to be recounted through the machines that originally counted them and use a clean zip drive to retrieve results. She said O’Brien County had no close votes, but for the sake of correctness the asked for the supervisors to order a recount which is required for her to act.
Before the request for a recount and again after, Rohwer believes the error is with the software. She explained that when a ballot jams the machine is to not count the ballot and provide a written message. That did not happen. The error happened in 4 precincts in O’Brien County. Multiple counties in Iowa use the same machines.
The supervisors ordered the recount that was completed later Thursday. It was a hand count. The results of the hand count showed that the 4 jams experienced throughout O’Brien County revealed original results gave 4 votes for which there was no eligible voter. She believes that is caused by the jammed ballot being counted. The recount corrected the original machine tallies.
The cause of the problem, though not certain is believed to be software updates to the 2012 motherboards used by O’Brien County. Neighboring counties, such as Ida, who use the same machines with 2016 motherboards had no problems.
Upgrades to voting equipment will be discussed by the board of supervisors beginning at the Tuesday June 14, 2022 meeting.