County auditor pleased with how local election proceeded

By Zach Jensen,

Supervisor Mark Faldet was one of three supervisors who participated in the canvassing of the recent election. (Photo by Zach Jensen)

Winneshiek County Supervisors Shirley Vermace, Mark Faldet and Dan Langreck met with Winneshiek County Auditor Ben Steines the morning of Nov. 13 to officially canvass the results of the Nov. 5 presidential election. Steines said he was happy with the county’s election process.

“All-in-all, this election went by smoothly, so that was a positive experience,” Steines said. “It was one of our busiest for … voting in person ever. I was quite pleased.”

Steines said Winneshiek County had nine voters on the “non-citizens list” from Iowa Secretary of State Paul D. Pate — Pate’s office had instructed county auditors across the state ahead of the election to challenge the ballots of 2,022 people whom Pate’s office listed as potential noncitizens, following an audit which identified individuals who had indicated they were non-citizens on public forms within the last 12 years and had subsequently registered to vote or had voted. Eight the nine individuals identified in Winneshiek County were allowed to vote after they provided appropriate identification, Steines said. The ninth individual’s address was listed as living at Luther College in 2017, which Steines said may indicate the individual was a Luther student who no longer lives in the area.

“None of them were provisional ballots,” Steines said. “They all just had their ballots counted and included with everybody else. The biggest issue with the whole thing was the timing. I wish they would have gone through the process of sending the list a few months earlier, so we would have had a cleaner list at election time — instead of two weeks before. But, everybody got their vote counted, and that was the important part.”

Full article available in the November 21 Decorah Leader.

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