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Bill changing when and how recounts can be conducted in Iowa headed to Gov. Reynolds
Only election results decided by a margin of 1 percent or less would be recounted under the legislation
Apr. 14, 2025 6:06 pm, Updated: Apr. 15, 2025 7:55 am
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DES MOINES — Only election results decided by a margin of 1 percent or less in Iowa would be recounted under legislation headed to Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk.
The Iowa Senate on Monday passed House File 928 by a vote of 31-14, with Democrats opposed.
State and local elections officials have been requesting an update to Iowa’s recount laws ever since a protracted 2020 recount in an Eastern Iowa congressional race that highlighted a patchwork of recount procedures across counties.
Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks was certified the winner by a scant six-vote margin after reporting errors were corrected in two counties and following a process where counties used different methods for recounting ballots, and a 131-ballot discrepancy in Scott County that was never explained.
Iowa’s chief elections officer, Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate, said the bill will provide needed uniformity, reliability and consistency in the state’s elections recount process.
“Recounts should look the same no matter what county you're in,” Pate said Friday during a taping of “Iowa Press” at Iowa PBS studios in Johnston. “… And also making sure that the people who are doing the recounting are fully prepared for it. And all the rules of the road, if you will, are clearly prescribed ahead of time so everyone knows what they are and there's no room for misinterpretation of those.”
The bill would:
- Lower the threshold for election recounts to outcomes decided by either 1 percent or 50 votes, whichever is lesser, for state legislative and local elections; or by less than 0.15 percent for a statewide or federal office. Candidates would no longer be required to post a bond for any recount.
- Change the composition of recount boards to county auditors and their staff of election workers. Currently, recount boards are comprised of one representative from each campaign plus a neutral member agreed upon by both campaigns. The bill also gives auditors the flexibility to make the recount boards as large as they deem necessary. Auditors would be required to appoint an equal number of election workers from each political party to conduct the recount.
- Allow each campaign to have up to five observers per county to oversee the recount process
- Require that all recounts be conducted using automatic ballot tabulating equipment. Recounts could be conducted by hand only in “extraordinary circumstances” defined to include machine failures, a discrepancy between the results of the election and an initial recount, and a number of overvotes that exceeds the margin between the candidates.
- Require that recount requests for legislative, statewide and federal races be filed with the Secretary of State’s office, who will then notify the respective county auditors, instead of having the task performed by campaigns
- Streamline the required timeline for recounts. Candidates would be required to request a recount by the close of business the first day after the election canvas, which would be the second Wednesday following the election. Currently the date is the Friday following the canvass deadline. Auditors requested the change to allow more time to prepare for a recount.
- Require recounts be complete no later than 18 days after the county auditor receives a request for the recount
Sen. Cindy Winckler, D-Davenport, expressed concern with auditors and their staff being asked to perform recounts, given auditors are chosen by voters in partisan elections, and could put auditors in the position of conducting recounts of their own elections.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, who has been through two recounts, emphasized the importance of candidates having their own representatives in the recount process.
“When the candidates can have their representative in the process, they are more confident of the outcome because their representative was there,” Trone Garriott said during debate on the Senate floor. “They had an advocate in the room, and that person stood up for them and spoke out for them and came back to them and shared everything that happened in the process so they do not feel left out.
“What we will have if we shift to this new model is candidates feeling very suspicious, very uncertain and not knowing if they can trust what they're hearing as part of this process and not feeling represented in it.”
As “clunky and cumbersome” and “unpleasant” as Iowa’s existing recount process may be, she said changing the composition of recount boards and “putting it on a partisan elected official, on the staff who are supervised and employed by them, does not make it more fair.”
The bill’s floor manager, Sen. Ken Rozenboom, R-Pella, argued that auditors are trusted with conducting elections and thus can be trusted with conducting recounts.
He called Iowa’s current process of appointing recount boards “haphazard,” and that allowing each campaign “up to five observers permitted that can represent or listen from both sides equally seems eminently fair to me.”
“This legislation will correct flaws in our current system,” Rozenboom said. “Campaigns will no longer be in a position to manipulate (the) recount system for their own partisan ends. These changes will bring consistency, reliability, fairness, uniformity and enforcement, correcting the fair process for recounting our close elections and strengthening the trust Iowans have in our elections.”
Pate, speaking on “Iowa Press,” agreed.
“Having sat through a lot of recounts, the auditors pretty much are the ones who do it,” he said. “The recount board members tend to be more there as observers because the auditor is the one who actually processes the ballots, puts them through the tabulators, hands them the tally sheets. So, they're really doing it right now. The difference is you just have another set of eyes on the process.”
Having county elections staff conduct recounts ensures “continuity from county to county” and that those conducting the recount are “professionally trained to handle it,” Pate said.
“We still have full transparency,” he said. “ … People get to watch every step of the way and ask questions, and both the candidates and the political parties can have people present there and I think that is important.”
Gazette Des Moines Bureau Chief Erin Murphy contributed reporting
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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